Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement Version: 6. Effective as of: 10/7/2024

Click on the bullet points below to take you to that section.

Introduction

This Privacy Statement sets out how Fórsa (Fórsa/the Union) is committed to protecting and securing your personal data in accordance with Irish and EU data protection legislation, specifically the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU)2016/679) and Irish Data Protection Act 2018.

This Statement is designed to ensure you are aware of the information we process about you including your rights in relation to this.

Who we are

The data controller is Fórsa, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1. Contact: Data Protection Officer, Fórsa, Nerney’s Court, Dublin 1. Email: dpo@forsa.ie.

Purpose of data collection and processing

As a collective representative organisation, our ability to act on your behalf as an individual member and on the collective interests of all our members, requires that we maintain securely and use from time-to-time basic personal information provided by our members. By being a member of Fórsa you consent to the storage and use, as appropriate, of the information provided by you in the course of the Union fulfilling its objects set out in Rule 3 of the Union’s Rule Book.

These services and actions will include:

• To meet the objects and rules of Fórsa
• To process your application form, received either online or by hard copy
• To register you as a Fórsa member
• Hold your membership information and case history on the Union’s membership system, Solas
• To process your subscriptions through your payroll, direct debit or financial payment systems
• If your subscription is through deduction at source, your employer will be contacted to process this application
• To automatically enrolled new eligible members for nine free months in the Cornmarket Income Continuance Scheme.
• To contact you about membership and trade union activities
• To manage your communication preferences
• To represent you in individual and collective issues
• Fόrsa’s branches are the basic organising structure of the Union. As well as full-time Fόrsa staff having access to your information, elected branch officers and elected union representatives may also have access to your information to represent, provide services to members and to process membership applications and resignations
• To provide membership services and benefits
• Statistical analysis of our membership
• To represent you in CORU cases up to and including sharing your data with the union’s legal representatives
• Attend training
• Attend Union events
• Participate in Union surveys, petitions and campaigns
• Personal data provided to apply to (1) Fórsa’s benevolent fund; (2) Gaeltacht Scholarship Fund; (3) Educational grants.
• To comply with our legal obligations
• To maintain health and Safety records
• To process financial transactions
• Records required for financial reporting
• To comply with the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018
• Equality monitoring.
• To ballot you on local and national agreements, by paper or electronic means
• To advise you of actions being taken on your behalf and/or on behalf of the wider membership in line with the Objects of the Union set out in Rule 3
• To encourage you to participate in activities and actions sanctioned by the Union’s National Executive and Divisional Executive Committees in pursuit of the Objects set out in Rule 3
• CCTV footage at or in the environs of Forsa Offices – for further information please request our CCTV Policy using the contact details below.
• Employee recruitment
• To process your resignation from Fórsa

We rely on various legal bases for processing your personal data which include:
• Performance of our membership contract with you
• Compliance with our legal obligations
• To support the legitimate interests of the union
• Where you provide consent.

How we share your personal data

We are committed to protecting and securing your personal data and we aim to ensure that all third-party providers are compliant with legislation and do not use your data for their own purposes unless they are controllers in their own right.

We share your personal data with employer’s payroll departments when your subscription is paid by deduction at source.

We may share your personal data from time to time with trusted third-party providers where required for business, legal and regulatory purposes.

With your consent we may share your personal data from time to time with professional, insurance and legal bodies in the interest of representing you.

With your consent we may share your personal data from time to time with services providers such as, for example, Cornmarket Financial Services. As part of the on-line joining Fórsa process, from a date to be confirmed in Autumn/Winter 2024, new eligible members are automatically enrolled for nine free months in the Cornmarket Income Continuance Scheme. With your consent, your details will be shared with Cornmarket Insurance, who in turn will share the data of eligible new members with New Ireland Insurance underwriters. Paper application forms will be used by new members who don’t wish to enrol in the Cornmarket Scheme.

Retention and deletion

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose(s) for which it was collected, taking into account all legal and contractual obligations. Where possible we will identify the duration for retention and, where this is not possible, we will explain the criteria for determining retention periods. Generally member’s case files are kept for seven (7) years.

Once the relevant retention schedule has concluded we shall safely and securely delete or destroy all personal data.

Website

You are not required to provide us with any personal information (or personal data) in order to use our Site or avail of our services. However, where you choose to give us personal data, or where your personal data is required in order to satisfy your requirements, we will treat your personal information in accordance with the European and Irish Data Protection legislation.

By simply visiting our site, you do not disclose, nor do we collect, personal data about you. The information collected about your visit is limited to anonymised data such as:

• The Internet address (or IP address) of the device you used to access this Site;
• Whether you reached the Site using a search engine or if you clicked a link on another website;
• What other pages on the website are visited and the search terms that people use to find our site;
• The type of web browser you used;
• Broadly, the demographics, geographical locations, and general interests of visitors to the website;
• The type of device you used to access the Internet.

We use this data for administrative and statistical purposes as well as to help us improve our Site. This technical data does not provide us with the personal data of visitors to our Site.

Most websites use cookies in order to improve the visitor experience by enabling that website to ‘remember’ you, either for the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (using a ‘persistent cookie’). Cookies may be set by the website you are visiting (‘first party cookies’) or they may be set by other websites who run content on the page you are viewing (‘third party cookies’). You can opt-in or opt-out of non-essential cookie use on the website by choosing to do so on the cookie notice. For further information on Internet browser cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.

Our website hosts two third part sub domains that are contracted through an external service provider: the Join Online function (join.forsa.ie), and a Campaigning function (act.forsa.ie). Personal data is inputted through them in accordance with those processes and with your consent at the time of inputting.

Everything an external service provider does is strictly governed by a contract and a Data Processing Agreement which confirms that the personal information we provide will only be used for the purposes we specify and will be processed in line with data protection legislation.

The ‘Contact us’ form on the site doesn’t retain personal data on the website, and acts as a direct email function, i.e. sends an email to the relevant email address depending on which division you select.

Giving us your personal information

Please note that where you provide us with your personal information (e.g. name, e-mail address, work address, phone and/or other contact information), through a facility provided on this Site or directly to us by e-mail, by post or in person, you consent to us:

a) (i) Processing and administering your personal data to perform all necessary actions to give effect to your request or instruction; and (ii) Retaining a record of such incoming and outgoing communications (e.g. email). Information in the communications we receive and send will not be disclosed to any third party without the permission of the sender unless otherwise in accordance with the relevant Data Protection legislation.

b) The data fields may include:
• Name
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Mobile number
• Email address
• Home address
• Employment details
• Employer
• Work Address
• Job title or grade
• Payroll number
• Annual salary
• Frequency of payment
• Type of contract
• Union membership history
• Bank details for payment

Please note that by using this Site you are giving us your consent to process your personal data as outlined in this Privacy Statement. Your consent is also provided to any successor or assignee of Fórsa and/or any of its businesses. We inform all persons who submit their personal data to us of these conditions by this Privacy Statement.

Fórsa operates, in compliance with the relevant Data Protection legislation, an “opt-out” policy. This means that we will continue to contact you with news and information of our events and services until we are informed that this communication is no longer required.

If you want to be removed from our direct marketing list and do not wish to receive any further information from us, you can inform us of this by clicking on the link at the bottom of each e-mail communication you receive from us. Once this information is received, we will immediately remove you from our direct marketing database.

Security of data

Fórsa takes its security obligations very seriously in respect of your personal data under data protection legislation in order to prevent unauthorised access to, or alteration, loss or destruction of the personal data in our possession.

Consequently, we have implemented effective organisational and technical measures to guarantee the security and confidentiality of your personal data for all the time in which such data will be under our control.

Right of access

You have the right access and to be given a copy of your personal data which you may have supplied to us, or which we hold in relation to your membership and correspondence.

To exercise this right, you must make your request in writing, post it and send it to our address as specified below and include with the request, proof of your name and address.

Moreover, in order to facilitate and accelerate our SAR response procedures, you should specify which personal information you intend to access and/or receive.

A request will be dealt with as soon as possible and will take not more than one month to process.

Nevertheless, it may occur that, for the particular complexity or for the high number of SARs that we might encounter, we will require additional time to process your access request.

In such cases we will provide you with the reason for the delay and respond to your request within maximum 3 months.

Please submit your request in writing for the attention of:

The Data Protection Officer,
Fórsa,
Nerney’s Court
Dublin D01 R2C5

Click here to email.

Your other rights under GDPR

Right to Rectification

You also have the right to have inaccurate personal data corrected. If you discover that we hold inaccurate personal data about you, you have a right to instruct us to correct that information.

Right to Erasure (‘Right to be Forgotten’)

In certain circumstances, you may also request that personal data which you have supplied to us be deleted if we do not have a legitimate reason for retaining the personal data. There will be no charge for processing such a request and we will comply within one month of the receipt.

Right to Object

In addition, you are entitled to exercise your right to object to the processing of your personal data. In this case, unless there are not legitimate and demonstrated reasons that override your interests, rights and freedom, we guarantee to promptly cease the processing of your information.

Right to Data Portability

Whether certain circumstances apply, it is you right to receive back from Fórsa the personal data you have provided to our Organisation.
Moreover, you are also entitled to require having your personal data transferred to another controller.

Such information will be provided to you (or to the other controller indicated by you) in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

Response time

It is our responsibility to respond to each of the above-mentioned requests within one month from their receipt.

Nevertheless, it may occur that, for the particular complexity or for the high number of such requests that we might experience, we will require additional time to respond you.

In this case we will provide you with the reasons for the delay and reply within maximum 3 months.

Costs

As prescribed by the law, you will not be charged for any of the action taken to guarantee the fulfilment of your data protection rights.

Request content

Any requests must be accompanied by:

1. Proof of your name and address (You may be asked to provide an up-to-date picture ID; and
2. A description of the specific personal data you wish rectified, erased or to which you intend to object or to have transferred.

Failure to provide personal data

We collect personal data to ensure we can represent our diverse member base in its entirety and to fulfil our responsibilities to our members within the rules of Fórsa.

Failure to provide us with the required personal data, on request, may limit our ability to represent you.

We rely on you to ensure the data we hold is accurate and up to date by communicating to us any changes to your personal information.

Check Forsa’s website HERE to see where you should send any changes to.

Profiling and automated decision-making

We do not use profiling or automated decision making on any of the personal data we hold.

Transmission to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

We may transfer your personal data to service providers outside the EEA. In such cases, we will ensure the data is carefully managed in accordance with applicable data protection law.

How do you exercise your rights?

If you have any questions or concerns about how we treat and use your personal data, or would like to exercise any of your rights as outlined above, please contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@forsa.ie or by writing to us at:

Fórsa,
Data Protection Officer,
Nerney’s Court
Dublin 1
DO1 R2C5

Fórsa will endeavour to address any data related concerns or complaints that you may have, however, if you would like to direct your complaint/concerns to the Data Protection Commission the contact details are:

Telephone: +353 57 8684800
Lo Call Number: 1890 252 868 4757
Click here to email

Postal address: Data Protection Commission, Canal House, Station Road, Portarlington, R32 AP23, County Laois.

Changes to our Privacy Statement

We may change this Privacy Statement at any time. Any such changes can be viewed on this page.

Terms and conditions

Access to this Site and the use of information contained on it is governed by the terms and conditions set out below. As these terms and conditions are for the protection of both you and Fórsa we advise that you please take the time to read them carefully.

By using this Site or corresponding with Fórsa you will be deemed to have accepted these terms and conditions. Please note that these data processing services are conducted by Fórsa and that references to “we”, “us” and “our” mean Fórsa. Copyright in this Site and the information set out on it belongs to Fórsa and/or our licensors and may not be copied, transmitted or reproduced without our prior consent. All copyright, trademark and other proprietary notices must be left intact. Save as otherwise specified, the contents of all the pages contained in this site are copyright of Fórsa or its licensors.

Reproduction of part or all of the contents of the pages in any form is prohibited other than in accordance with the following permissions:

• You are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence solely for the purpose of using this Site and any services available on this Site;
• You may make one electronically stored, transient copy of these pages of this site for the exclusive purpose of on-line viewing;
• You may make one hard copy of these pages for exclusively, non-commercial purposes.

Save whether otherwise specified, the author(s) of the literary and artistic work set out in the pages contained in this Site has/have asserted his/her/their moral rights to be identified as the author of these works.

This licence does not permit incorporation of the material or any part of it in any other work or publication, whether in hardcopy or electronic or any other form. In particular, (but without limitation) no part of this Site may be distributed or copied for any commercial purpose.

No part of this Site may be reproduced on or transmitted to or stored in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval.

The contents of this Site including these terms and conditions are subject to change by us without notification to you. While we make every effort to make you aware of such changes, we accept no responsibility or liability for keeping you informed of such changes.

Disclaimer

The information contained in this Site is for information purposes only. Whilst every care has been taken in its preparation, we do not make any warranties or representations as to its completeness, accuracy or reliability. Although we have made all reasonable efforts to ensure that all of the information on the Site is accurate at the time of inclusion, we do not represent that this is the case and it should not be relied upon as such.

We neither accept nor assume any responsibility to you in relation to the contents of this Site. Access to and use of this Site is at the user’s own risk and we do not represent or warrant the use of this Site or any material downloaded from it will not cause damage to property, including but not limited to loss of data or computer virus infection.

We reserve the right to update or alter the information on this Site including these terms and conditions at any time without giving notice of the alterations. Fórsa does not give any warranty of uninterrupted use of this Site and Fórsa do not accept liability for any information posted on this Site by third parties, or any link to this Site published by third parties.

You will ensure that your use of this Site complies with all applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to those principles of law which protect against compromise of copyrights, trade secrets, proprietary information, individual privacy rights and other intellectual property rights, liable or defamation of character, invasion of privacy or tortious interference.

No data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed as totally secure. Whilst we strive to protect such information we do not warrant and cannot ensure the security of any information which you transmit to us. Accordingly, any information which you transmit to us is transmitted at your own risk. Nevertheless, once we receive your transmission, we will take reasonable steps to preserve the security of such information.

You agree not to post or publish any offensive, defamatory or unlawful material that could encourage or constitute a criminal offence, civil liability or violation of any law.

Fórsa reserves the right to monitor or review the contents of the Site but are not obliged to do so and assume no liability or responsibility for the contents therein. Fórsa reserves the right to remove any materials posted to the Site at its absolute discretion.

Fórsa may, at its own discretion or where required to do so by law, disclose your identity to relevant parties to aid an investigation.

You warrant that the information you enter on this Site is accurate and you indemnify us in respect of any damage or legal costs arising out of any action taken against us in respect of the material posted by you.