Privacy Notice

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires that data controllers provide certain information to people whose information (personal data) they hold and use. A privacy notice is one way of providing this information. 

A privacy notice should identify who the data controller is, with contact details for its Data Protection Officer. It should also explain the purposes for which personal data are collected and used, how the data are used and disclosed, how long it is kept, and the controller’s legal basis for processing.

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on the 25th of May 2018. It replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and is designed to harmonise data protection laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens’ data privacy and to reshape the way organisations across the region approach data privacy.

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital is a “Controller” in respect to personal data that you provide to us. For information on GDPR, you can visit the Data Protection Commissioner website here.

The term ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identifiable person (called a data subject) who can be directly or indirectly identified, in particular by reference to an identifier. This definition provides for a range of personal identifiers which can includes name(s), identification number(s), location data or online identifier (e.g. IP address).

You have rights in relation to your personal data, as a data subject.

Important: These rights are subject to certain restrictions.

Right of access:

You have the right to ask for access to the information that we hold about you. If you want to receive this information, then you can find details on how to do this on our accessing medical records page here  or our FOI page here.

Right to rectification and data erasure:

If your personal data is inaccurate, you have the right to have the data rectified. If your personal data is incomplete, you have the right to have data completed, including by means of providing supplementary information.

You have the right to request that your data is erased in certain limited circumstances.

Right to restriction of processing:

You have a limited right of restriction of processing of your personal data by a data controller.

Right to object:

You have the right to object to certain types of processing of your personal data where this processing is carried out in connection with tasks:

• in the public interest,
• under official authority, or
• in the legitimate interests of others.

Right to data portability:

You have the right to receive your personal data that you have provided to us in a ‘commonly used and machine-readable format’ and also for us to transfer that data to another controller for you when requested where  technically feasible.

Right to lodge a complaint:

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commission:

info@dataprotection.ie 
Data Protection Commissioner
Canal House, Station Road
Portarlington, 
R32 AP23 
Co. Laois.

See the Data Protection Commissioner website here for more information.

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Cookies help us enhance your experience when using the website. They also help us understand how people use our site, such as which pages are most popular, so that we can better serve our site users.

Cookie Management Tool

The Mater.ie Cookie Management Tool can be utilised to customise your cookie preferences. The tool will record when you have consented to our cookie policy. The consent tool specifically controls the marketing cookies and analytical cookies set by using our website (www.mater.ie). Essential cookies cannot be disabled, nor can the tool be used to block cookies on third-party websites linked from our website.

Using Your Browser

Many of the cookies used on our website can be enabled or disabled through our cookie management tool or by disabling the cookies through your browser. To disable cookies through your browser, follow the instructions usually located within the “Help,” “Tools” or “Edit” menus in your browser. Please note that disabling a cookie or category of cookies does not delete the cookie from your browser unless manually completed through your browser function. Information on how to disable cookies on various browsers is available here: www.whatarecookies.com/enable.asp.

Strictly Necessary

Strictly necessary cookies are essential to enable you to navigate around our Websites and use its features. It is possible to delete these cookies (see how to manage your cookies below), but without them we would be unable to provide certain features of our website. These cookies allow you to:

• These are essential site cookies, used by the google reCAPTCHA. These cookies use an unique identifier for tracking purposes.

Functional Cookies

Functionality cookies allow our website to remember choices you have made and help to provide an enhanced, more personal experience on our Website. It is possible to delete these cookies (see how to manage your cookies below), but without them we would be unable to provide certain features of our website. Here are some examples of how we use these cookies:

• Used by BrowseAloud Plus to record if secure speech requests are allowed.
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• Used to determine whether to display the Cookie Consent banner.
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• Used as a security measure to protect users data from unauthorised access.

Analytical Cookies

We use Google Analytics cookies to collect information about how visitors use our website. These cookies collect information in the aggregate to give us insight into how our website is being used. These cookies are anonymous and aggregated – they don't collect information that identifies a visitor. Account IDs are captured in Google Analytics but are not directly linked to a unique customer within that data environment. These cookies are non-essential for our site to function but they allow us to test new pages and evaluate their effectiveness, making sure we deliver the most relevant information to you and helping us to improve your experience on our Websites.

Advertising Cookies

We use advertising cookies to help us compile web statistics on an advertising campaign, or to determine the how to serve the most relevant ads to the right audience.

A guide to behavioural advertising and online privacy has been compiled by the internet advertising industry and can be found at http://www.youronlinechoices.eu.

Miscellaneous Cookies

Used to play YouTube videos embedded on the website.

The table below identifies the cookies that are used on our website:

Third party cookies are cookies set by someone other than the website owner for purposes such as collecting information on user behaviour, demographics, or personalised marketing. When using our website, you may encounter embedded content, such as YouTube videos, or you may be directed to other websites for such activities as surveys, to make payments, access web accessibility services or for job applications. These websites and embedded content may use their own cookies. We do not have control over the placement of cookies by other websites, even if you are directed to them from our website.

Collection of your data from our analytics cookies can be deleted. If cookies are deleted, the information collected prior to the preference change may still be used, however, we will stop using the disabled cookie to collect any further information from your user experience. 

The below web privacy information explains how the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital deals with any personal data you provide us while visiting this website. The information provided on this page will help you to understand what personal data may be collected on this website, why it is collected, and what is done with it.

You might come across links to third party / other websites on our website. These external websites should have their own privacy notices. We cannot accept any responsibility or liability for their website content, links and policies as we have no control over them.