Privacy Statement

The Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools (ACCS) is the national representative Association for 96 Community and Comprehensive Post-Primary Schools nationwide. As a representative body, the Association has a diverse range of powers and functions outlined in its Memorandum and Articles of Association which seek to protect, promote and enhance the interests of its membership within the education sector and the country at large. The views of the members are expressed through its wide-ranging Convention, Executive and Sub-committee structures and have a significant impact on policy and decision making in the field of Irish education.

From the 25th May 2018, the law regarding data protection is changing. While many of the principles and ideas remain the same, the new GDPR will strengthen the rights of data subjects regarding their privacy and the responsibilities of organisations (known as data controllers) such as the ACCS to uphold these rights.

Please read the following statement carefully to understand our views and practices regarding how any personal data we collect from and about you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us.

It applies to all information we collect about:

  • Visitors to our websites

  • Member schools, partners, suppliers and others who register and use our services

Collection and use of personal information:

The ACCS is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. The ACCS does not collect any personal data about you, apart from the information which you give us by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise. It includes the information which you supply us with when you engage in our CPD booking. Any information you provide is used by the ACCS only in line with the purpose for which you provided it. Your personal data may however be anonymised and used in the aggregate, for statistical purposes.

Our website - www.accs.ie

ACCS is committed to preserving the privacy of all visitors to www.accs.ie (“our website”). This privacy statement relates to our practices in connection with our website and its associated services. ACCS fully respects your right to privacy.  We will not collect personal information/personal data about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information using the “contact us” form, consenting to the use of cookies or subscribe to our “e-news”.  By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of your information under the terms of this privacy statement which is in accordance with the Data Protection Acts, 1988 and 2003 and the European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and Services) (Privacy and Electronic Communications) Regulations 2011. Please read the following privacy statement to understand how we use and protect the information that you choose to provide to us.

Personal information which we collect from you

When you visit our website you may wish to provide certain information about yourself, such as when you complete our “Contact Us” form or subscribe to our “e-news”. ACCS does not collect any personal data about you on this website, apart from the information which you volunteer to send us/provide in the “Contact Us” form or by subscribing to our “e-news” or by accepting our use of cookies, web beacons and similar technologies in order to run our website, keep it secure and understand how visitors use our website in order to provide relevant and interesting content. 

The “e-news” published by ACCS in conjuction with our provider mailerlite, may contain tracking facilities such as web beacons within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include; the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity [this may not be a comprehensive list].  This information is used to evaluate the effectiveness of our “e-news”. To find out more about the types of tracking associated with our email campaigns, read the Mailerlite Privacy Policy.

Non-Personal information which we collect

Where you visit our website, certain non-personal data is available to us through our internet service provider.  This non-personal data is collected on a statistical, aggregate, non-individual basis.  This information may include the IP address from which you access our website, the type of browser used to access our website (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.), the type of operating system used to access our website (Windows, Macintosh, etc.), the “top-level” domain name used (ie, .com, .org, etc.), the date and time of your visit to our website and the number of pages you visited on our website. 

 Use of your information

Any information which you provide using the “Contact Us” form is not made available to any third parties and is only used by ACCS in line with the purposes for which you provided it (e.g. to contact you and answer any queries which you have raised in the “Contact Us” form or to address any other feedback which you send us in the “Contact Us” form) or for any reasonably incidental purpose.

If you have consented to receiving our “e-news”, by opting to subscribe to it on our website, we use your data provided together with Mailerlite to deliver our “e-news” to the email address you provided. For further information on how Mailerlite protects your data and complies with data protection laws, please visit: https://www.mailerlite.com/legal/privacy-policy

Disclosure to Other People

We do not disclose, sell or distribute any personal information which you send to us via the “Contact Us” form to any third parties. We may pass aggregate information on the usage of our site to third parties, but this will not include information that can be used to identify you. Your personal data may also be anonymised and used for statistical purposes. Unless required to do so by law, we will not otherwise share, sell or distribute any of the information you provide to us without your consent.

If you consent to and sign up to receiving our school “e-news” via email, your information provided is not held by us, it is collected by our third party newsletter processor Mailerlite, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of email transactions and are fully EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework Certified and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. You can read the Mailerlite privacy policy here.

Transferring your information outside of Europe

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By way of example, this may happen if any of our data processors' servers are located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the EU. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

Social media platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution regarding their own privacy and personal details. This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

Shortened links in social media

This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy urls [web addresses]. Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened urls published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine urls are published, many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

 IP Addresses

With your privacy in mind and since in our case it does not add much value to our site analytics, we have opted NOT to collect visitors IP addresses through our site analytics tools provided by our website’s platform provider (Squarespace).

External website links

Although this website strives to only include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites. The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Cookies

For a full list of cookies we use and more detailed information on how to accept or reject cookies, please visit our cookie policy 

WHAT IS A COOKIE?

A cookie is a small text file that may be stored on your computer or mobile device that contains data related to a website you visit. It may allow a website “remember” your actions or preferences over a period of time, or it may contain data related to the function or delivery of the site. Cookies can be set by the owner of the website or in some cases by third party services the website owner allows to present other information, run content or provide other functionality such as analytics.

Further information on cookies can be found at; http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm

COOKIES USED ON www.accs.ie

ACCS uses cookies when you visit our website, which is built on the Squarespace platform. We use some essential cookies for security features on our website and we use Squarespace's proprietary analytics tools which allow us to measure and learn in aggregate how our website is being used, and to see for example, which are the most popular pages or what % of our users access our website from a mobile device vs a desktop. This helps us make important design and functionality decisions and helps us ensure we provide relevant information in an easily accessible format. This analytics tool does not however track you across the internet and is only used during your visit to our website and analytics cookies are only placed on your device once you have given your consent to their use. We also use several session cookies and a persistent cookie to record your acknowledgement of our cookie usage. You can read the Squarespace privacy policy here.

ESSENTIAL AND NON-ESSENTIAL COOKIES

Cookies can be classified as either 'essential' or 'non-essential'.

Essential cookies: these are cookies that are either:
(a) used solely to carry out or facilitate the transmission of communications over a network; or
(b) strictly necessary to provide an online service (e.g. our website or a service on our website) which you have requested.

'Essential' cookies are automatically placed on your computer or device when you access our website or take certain actions on our website.

Non-essential cookies: these are any cookies that do not fall within the definition of essential cookies, such as cookies used to analyse your behaviour on a website ('analytical' cookies) or cookies used to display advertisements to you ('advertising' cookies).  'Non-essential' cookies and other technologies are only placed on your computer or device if you have consented to us doing so. 

SESSION AND PERSISTENT COOKIES

Cookies can be classified as either 'session' or 'persistent', depending on how long they last after they are placed on your browser.

Session cookies: session cookies last for as long as you keep your browser open. They expire when you close your browser.

Persistent cookies: persistent cookies expire at a fixed point in time or if you manually delete them from your browser, whichever occurs first.

FIRST AND THIRD PARTY COOKIES

Cookies can be classified as 'first party' or 'third party'.

First party cookies: these are cookies placed on your device by our website domain.

Third party cookies: these are cookies placed on your device by third party website domains.

For a full list of cookies we use and more detailed information on how to accept or reject cookies please visit our cookie policy


Disclosure to Other People:

We may disclose your personal information on a confidential basis to external service providers such as exhibitors at our conferences so that they can provide services in connection with the operation of our business.

We collect, hold and may use the information collected for the following purposes:

  • respond to any email/other enquiries;

  • notify you of any upcoming training or other events;

  • provide you with publications;

  • allow us to provide you with the services you request from us;

  • to monitor and improve the quality of our services;

  • to notify you of changes to our services;

  • manage systems administration;

  • attend to compliance issues;

  • comply with legal obligations we might be subject to;

  • compile statistical data and to maintain our database;

  • develop/ improve our website;


Accessing Your Information:

On written request, and where your personal data is available, we will supply you with copies of your personal data which you may have supplied to us using our website or other means.  If you wish to obtain copies of this personal data, you should write to the General Secretary, The ACCS, 10H Centrepoint Business Park, Oak Drive, Dublin 12 and ask that he/she provides you with an Access Request Form. Your request will be dealt with as soon as possible and will not take more than one month to process. 

If you discover that the ACCS holds inaccurate information about you, you have the right to have your personal data corrected. In certain circumstances, you may also request that data which you have supplied via our website or by other means be erased if you deem that the ACCS does not have a legitimate reason for retaining the data. Upon written request to the General Secretary, The ACCS, 10H Centrepoint Business Park, Oak Drive, Dublin 12, the ACCS will supply you with a Data Rectification/Erasure Form for this purpose.


Security:

The ACCS takes its security responsibilities seriously, employing the most appropriate physical and technical measures, including staff training and awareness and we review these measures regularly. We will limit the sharing of data supplied by you to only those staff of the ACCS who require access to it for the purpose of providing you with the service which you require at any one time.  Unfortunately, the transmission of information by means of the internet, including through e-mail, is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to or from us by means of e-mail and any such transmission is at your own risk.


Accurate, complete and up-to-date information:

The ACCS is committed to only holding accurate, complete and up-to-date data. We will regularly review the data held and will encourage data subjects to review and update the data which they provide as details change.  At all times data subjects may update their details held by the ACCS by contacting us at privacy@accs.ie 


Retention

The ACCS will not hold your data for longer than is necessary for the purpose(s) for which it was obtained and will not hold more data than is necessary for the purpose for which the ACCS has collected it. It is our policy to review all data supplied/obtained and to delete that which is not necessary, or which is no longer necessary.

Should you wish to discuss any matters relating to the processing of your data, please contact us at:

The General Secretary,
The Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools
10H Centrepoint Business Park, Oak Drive, Dublin 12
Telephone: 01-4601150
Fax: 01-4601203
Email: privacy@accs.ie

 

The ACCS reserves the right to change or modify this privacy statement at any time.

 Review of this Policy
We keep this Policy under regular review. This policy was last updated in February 2020.

Our website is hosted by Squarespace and its use is subject to Squarespace's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.