Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement For The Protect Our Water Registration Website

1. Introduction

This website Privacy Policy outlines how we deal with any personal data you provide us while visiting this website.

Access to personal data provided in conjunction with the payment of domestic waste water treatment system registration fees is to be strictly controlled. The water services authorities (hereafter the 34 County and City Councils) are the primary data controllers under the Act, and the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), on a shared services agency basis for the Councils, collects and processes domestic waste treatment systems registration data.

By visiting this website, you are accepting the terms of this Website Privacy Policy. Any external links to other websites are clearly identifiable as such and we are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of these other websites.

The basis for the collection of the data is the requirement for owners of domestic waste water treatment systems to register those systems in accordance with the provisions of Section 70B(2) OF the Water Services (Amendment) Act 2012 (the Act) and Section 5 of the Domestic Waste Water Treatment Systems (Registration) Regulations 2012.

Please note that Section 70B(10) of the Act provides that a council shall publish and make available for inspection by members of the public the register of domestic waste water treatment systems in its functional area. Under Section 70I(3)(a) of the Act, the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) may direct a council to submit details from the register to the Agency. It is not intended that any personal data (i.e. information which personally identifies you) which you submit as part of your application will be published by the Councils or by the Agency as part of the register provided for under Section 70B(10) of the Act.

 2. Types of Information Collected

We retain two types of information:

1. Personal Data
   1. Description: This is data that identifies you or can be used to identify or contact you and may include your name, address, ESB Meter Point Reference Number (MPRN), email address and telephone number. We record the IP address assigned to you by your Internet Service Provider. This is used for a number of purposes including administering the site, analysing trends and gathering statistics. We will not link IP addresses with other personal information except in cases where criminal activity has taken place (e.g. in response to a "hacking" incident).
   2. Purpose for which held: Personal Data collected on this site is gathered for the purposes of processing domestic waste water treatment system (DWWTSs) registration payment transactions and for the dissemination of information relating to the operation and maintenance of DWWTSs; establishing and maintaining a register of DWWTSs; and information purposes related to the inspection of DWWTSs. Your name and address must be provided and these may be used by your council to contact you if your treatment system is selected to be inspected. The Meter Point Reference Number (MPRN) is a unique 11 digit number assigned to every single electricity connection and meter in the country. The MPRN is being requested to enable individual properties to be uniquely identified for the purposes of verifying that the treatment system at any particular property is registered. While provision of the MPRN when registering is optional it is in your interest to provide it as your MPRN is unique to your property and can therefore be regarded as indisputable evidence that your system is registered.

      Your Email address and telephone number are collected from you (if you voluntarily submit them) to use for reminders, the dissemination of information relating to the operation and maintenance of DWWTSs and information purposes related to the inspection of DWWTSs.  

2. Non-Personal Data
   1. Description: Non-Personal Data comprises information that cannot be used to identify or contact you, such as
      • demographic information regarding, for example,browser types
      • The top level domain name from which you access the Internet (for example, .ie, .com, .org, etc.)
      • The date and time you access our site
      • Other anonymous statistical data involving the use of our website.
   2. Purpose for which held: We use the Non-Personal Data gathered from visitors to our website in an aggregate form to get a better understanding of where our visitors come from and to help us better design and organise our website.

3. Use of Cookies

Cookies: Like many websites, the Protect Our Water site uses session cookies that we transfer to your computer for the duration of your visit. The website utilises “session cookies” – two cookies are created when you use the site (no cookies are created if you just wish to view the homepage) and another is created if you use the Irish language version of the site. These cookies, which are necessary for the provision of the service to allow you to register and pay the domestic waste water treatment system registration fee, are held in your browser which deletes them when you logout of the Protect Our Water website.

Google Analytics: In addition we also use Google Analytics to help analyse how users use the site and gather other statistics. Google Analytics puts “persistent” cookies (typically 4) on your computer each beginning with “_utm”. For more details on this please see the section below on Google Analytics.

Use of Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics with the expansion ‘_anonymizeIp()’; therefore, only abbreviated IP addresses will be further processed, so that a direct connection to the individual user is eliminated.

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (‘Google’). Google Analytics uses ‘cookies,’ which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. In the event IP anonymization is activated on this website, your IP address will be shortened beforehand by Google within member states of the European Union or in other signatory states of the Treaty on the European Economic Area. The full IP address will be transmitted to a Google Server in the USA and shortened there only on an exceptional basis. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators, and providing other services to website operators relating to website activity and Internet usage. Google will not associate the IP address transmitted under Google Analytics by your browser with other data held by Google. You may prevent the storage of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser software. You may prevent Google from recording the data generated by the cookie and pertaining to your use of the website (including your IP address), or processing these data by downloading and installing the following browser plug-in available through the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

4. Data Retention

Section 70B of the Act provides for the maintenance of a record by each Council of domestic waste water treatment systems within their functional area. On receipt of an application for registration details of the domestic waste water treatment system will be included in the register for the functional area of the Council concerned and a certificate of registration will be issued to the applicant. To facilitate these statutory requirements your data will be securely retained in the system.

 5. Data Sharing and Exchange

There are no explicit data-sharing or exchange provisions included in the Water Services (Amendment) Act 2012 or associated regulations.  However, publication and sharing of data relevant to the registration system is provided for under the following provisions of the Act: Section 70B refers to the establishment and maintenance of a register by the water services authorities and the publication of the register; Section 70I provides for the EPA specifying the records to be maintained by a Council for submission to the Agency.

Outside of these statutory requirements, we will not disclose your Personal Data to third parties unless you have consented to this disclosure. We will disclose your Personal Data if we believe in good faith that we are required to disclose it in order to comply with any applicable law, a summons, a search warrant, a court or regulatory order, or other statutory requirement.

6. Security

We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorised access to or unauthorised alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, including appropriate encryption and physical security measures to guard against unauthorised access to systems where we store personal data.

To ensure the security of your credit or debit card information when you enter payment information on this site, the LGMA uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology. As you access all areas of this site, you will see the padlock in your browser's security display indicating that the transfer of all data between your browser and the Protect Our Water website has been encrypted.

You must make sure that if you're sending sensitive personal or financial information that your connection is secure. If your connection is secure a closed padlock icon appears on the status bar and the URL will start with https:// rather than http://

Your credit or debit card information is not retained on this site; rather it is securely transferred to Realex Payments, a secure online payments provider.

7. Updating, Verifying and Deleting Personal Data

You may inform us of any changes in your Personal Data, and in accordance with our obligations under the Data Protection Acts,  including GDPR, we will update or delete your Personal Data accordingly.

Under Article 15 of GDPR, you have the right of access to what Personal Data belonging to you is held and processed by us. To find out what Personal Data we hold on you or to have your Personal Data updated, amended or removed from our database, please contact  via dataprotection@LGMA.ie.

The material featured on this site is subject to Government copyright according to the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000. The material may be downloaded to file or printer for personal use only. Where this material is being issued to others, the source (including URL) and copyright status must be acknowledged.

The permission to reproduce Government copyright material does not extend to any material on this site that may be the property of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.

9. Disclaimer Statement

The information provided is intended to enhance public access to information about the Protect Our Water website. While every effort is made in preparing material for publication, no responsibility is accepted by or on behalf of the State for any errors, omissions or misleading statements on these pages or any site to which these pages connect.

Although every effort is made to ensure the reliability of listed sites, this cannot be taken as an endorsement of these sites. If you have any concerns regarding the use of your data please contact us via support@protectourwater.ie.

10. Changes to the Website Privacy Policy

Any changes to this Website Privacy Policy will be posted on this website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any time we decide to use Personal Data in a manner significantly different from that stated in this Website Privacy Policy, or otherwise disclosed to you at the time it was collected, we will notify you, and you will have a choice as to whether or not we use your information in the new manner.

GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation - Operative Date - 25^th May 2018

This EU Regulation conveys strong rights, to you as a data subject. It permits you to obtain access to personal data held in any format by a data processor.

In particular, you have specific rights under:

• Article 13…Information to be provided where personal data is collected from you (the data subject)
• Article 14…Information to be provided where personal data has not been obtained directly from you (the data subject)
• Article 15…Right of Access (full disclosure of any personal data held about you)
• Article 16…Right to Rectification (to have any inaccurate personal data corrected)
• Article 17…Right to Erasure (“right to be forgotten” or removed from the data store/system)

The General Data Protection Regulation may be viewed in full at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679

Any request to access your data under GDPR must be submitted to dataprotection@lgma.ie