Tourism Ireland – Privacy Policy
 
(last reviewed on 25th February 2025)

1. WHO WE ARE
We are Tourism Ireland Limited ("we", “our”, “Tourism Ireland”) whose principal place of business is at 5th Floor Bishop's Square, Redmond's Hill, Dublin, D02 TD99, Ireland and which terms shall also include our Affiliates. “Affiliates” means any entity that directly or indirectly controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with us. “Control” for purposes of this definition, means direct or indirect ownership or control of more than 50% of the voting interests of the subject entity). This privacy and cookies policy (the “Policy”) refers to the websites; www.tourismireland.com  (the “Website”).
 
Your privacy is of paramount importance to us. This Policy applies to the Website, applications and services related thereto (the “Service”). This Policy is designed to protect you, our users, by informing you what Personal Data is collected, how we will use the information about you, with whom we share it, how long we keep it and how to contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal information. Your use of the Website and any micro-sites is subject to your agreement with this Policy.
 
In this Policy, the term “Personal Data” means data relating to a living individual who is or can be identified either from the data or from the data in conjunction with other information that is in, or is likely to come into, our possession, and includes personal data as described in Data Protection Legislation (as defined below).
 
Please read the following carefully.  Registering for an account (“Your Account”) or entering into this Website and providing your consent to our use of your Your Data in accordance with the terms of this Policy indicates that the user has reviewed this Policy and has agreed to be bound by it. If you do not agree to these terms you must leave the Website immediately. We will keep a record of your consent in this regard. If you no longer consent to our processing of your Your Data, you may request that we cease such processing by contacting us via the ‘How to contact us’ facility referred to below.  
 
We will handle your Personal Data in accordance with Data Protection Laws. “Data Protection Laws” means the Data Protection Acts 1988 to 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (“GDPR”), and any other applicable law or regulation relating to the processing of Personal Data and to privacy, including the E-Privacy Directive 2002/58/EC and the European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and Services) (Privacy and Electronic Communications) Regulations 2011, as such legislation shall be supplemented, amended, revised or replaced from time to time and all guidance and codes of practice issued by a relevant supervisory authority from time to time and which are applicable to us.
 
We are a controller (as defined in Data Protection Legislation) in relation to any Personal Data which we collect from you through your or any other user’s use of the Service and the set-up of Your Account. This Policy sets out the basis on which any such Personal Data will be processed by us.  You may be a data subject (as defined in Data Protection Laws) or you may be a controller. When you are a controller in respect of the Personal Data of other data subjects, then you must comply with all of your controller obligations under Data Protection Legislation. When you are a controller, we and you act as independent controllers, unless agreed otherwise.

2. INFORMATION WE GATHER FROM YOU
We fully respect your right to privacy in relation to your interactions with the Service and endeavour to be transparent in our dealings with you as to what information we will collect and how we will use your information. Also, we only collect and use individual’s information where we are legally entitled to do so. Information in relation to Personal Data collected by Irish entities is available on www.dataprotection.ie, the website of the Irish Data Protection Commission (“DPC”).

Simply put, our function is to market the island of Ireland overseas as a tourist destination.  A core part of our business is to facilitate efforts to promote, publicise and sell tourism products and services in Ireland and Northern Ireland.  As a visitor to our Website, we invite you to opt-in to receive further information from us. The provision of your personal information is entirely at your discretion. If you do decide to opt-in, we will require certain limited Personal Data from you. This will include your name, and email address.

We may also ask for your postal address to determine the location of your business - this assists us in deciding where best to locate networking and promotional events and also for reporting purposes.  In all cases, you can be assured that we seek only the most basic details.  
 
Website usage information is collected using cookies.  We collect and collate generic information on all our Website traffic that is only ever represented in aggregate format.  For more information please see our Cookies Policy. 
 
From time to time, Tourism Ireland may ask users for feedback (free text entry, quality ratings or similar) to help analyse the quality and performance of the Website. Information collected for this purpose is done so anonymously and is used to aid our understanding of customer needs and opinions only. On occasion specific quotes may be highlighted from individuals, however this is done so without personally identifying the users.
 
You may appear in images taken by Tourism Ireland or taken by a photographer on behalf of Tourism Ireland if you are attending an event, workshop, fair, familiarisation visit to the island of Ireland etc. 
Such images may be used by Tourism Ireland to publicise the various activities through all Tourism Ireland’s media channels. In such instances, attendees are photographed under the lawful basis of legitimate interests. Tourism Ireland will, where possible, minimise any potential risk by making clear that photography will be taking place, either verbally of visually, thereby allowing attendees the opportunity of making it known that they do not wish to be photographed.

Applications developed in connection with the Website for mobile devices will operate and capture information as set out above and are also subject to this Policy.
 
Any Personal Data that we collect from you for the purposes described in this Policy is hereinafter referred to together as “Your Data”.
 
We endeavour to keep Your Data accurate and up-to-date. As such, you must tell us about any changes to such information that you are aware of as soon as possible. You can change your stated interests in respect of whether or not you wish to receive direct marketing from us by clicking ‘unsubscribe’ on any direct marketing electronic communication which you receive from us.
 
Applications developed in connection with the Website for mobile devices will operate and capture information as set out above and are also subject to this Policy. Applications developed by us but deployed on other platforms such as social media channels may provide feedback to us on activity and usage specific to a user.

If you are aged under 18, please get your parent/guardian’s permission before you provide Your Data to us/use the Service.

3. WHY WE COLLECT/HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION
We may collect information from you as necessary in the course of providing our Service. We may collect your personal information while monitoring our technology tools and services, including our website and email communications sent to and from us. We gather information about you when you provide it to us or interact with us directly.
 
We collect information about you to help us to manage your Website account and to email you with updates on tourism products and services in Ireland and Northern Ireland or email you with promotional opportunities we feel will be of interest to you. We may use the information collected from the Website to personalise your repeat visits to our Website.

We will also hold your details on file and may contact you directly about specific promotions or opportunities, with invitations to networking events, workshops or webinars or to participate in familiarisation visits to the island of Ireland or for other reasons that we feel may be of mutual business interest.  
 
We would like to send you information about products and services of ours and other island of Ireland tourism industry members which may be of interest to you. When you enter your contact details on one of our Website forms and submit you are opting-in to receive promotional information from us. If you have consented to receive communications from us, you may opt out at any time. You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for direct marketing purposes.  Please see ‘Right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing.’
 
From time to time, we conduct joint promotional email campaigns with third parties. As part of such campaigns, if you have ‘opted in’ to receive them, we may forward promotional emails to your email address containing information on products and services that we feel may be of interest to you. Such emails may include links to the websites of third parties, and in this regard we would refer you to the section headed 'How do we protect your personal information' below. 

If you have consented to recieive communications from you in respect of any of the above communications, yo may opt out at any time.  You have a right at anytime to stop us from contacting you for direct marketing purposes.  Please see 'Right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing' below.  When you send us  a query via email we will endeavour to respond to you as soon as posisble and you will not recieve marketing emails from us unless you have signed up to that seperately. 

We collect IP addresses from visitors to our Website (an IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet). This allows us to identify the location of users, to block disruptive use and to establish the number of visits from different countries. We analyse this data for trend and statistics reasons, such as which parts of our Website users are visiting and how long they spend there.
 
We may use your Personal Data on any one or more of the following legal bases: (i) to perform a contract with you; (ii) for our legitimate business purposes in providing the Service to you (in which case, our legitimate interests will not override your fundamental privacy rights); and/or (iii)  where you have given us your express consent.(e.g. for direct marketing purposes, as set out above).
 
We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use Your Data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are, where appropriate.
 
Note that we may process your Personal Data for more than one legal basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal basis we are relying on to process your Personal Data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
 

 

4. USER UPLOADED DATA
Your Data is separate from and should be distinguished from User Uploaded Data. “User Uploaded Data” is data uploaded by you or others through your Account/your use of the Service when you use e.g. the comment function, contact us function or ‘Have you a Story to Tell’ function on our ‘Website’. We strongly recommend that you avoid uploading any Personal Data in any User Uploaded Data. We reserve the sole right to review, edit or delete User Uploaded Data. We also moderate all User Uploaded Data in order to ensure that it does not contain Personal Data. Notwithstanding this, we are a Processor and you are the Controller in respect of User Uploaded Data (to the extent that it includes Personal Data).
If you are a Controller in respect of any Personal Data of other data subjects contained in User Uploaded Data, then you must comply with all of your Controller obligations under Data Protection Laws in that regard.

5. WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE
As a data subject, you have the following rights under Data Protection Laws and we, as controller in respect of Your Data, will comply with such rights in respect of Your Data:  These rights are explained in more detail below, but if yo have any comments, concerns or complaints about our use of Your Data, please contact us (see 'How to Contact Us' below).  We will respond to any rights that you exercise within one month of receiving your request, unless the request is particular complex, i nwhich case we will respond within three months (we will inform you within th first month if it will take longer than one month for us to respond).

6. WHO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH

We may share Your Data with various third parties (subject to having appropriate contracts in place). 

In order to arrange and hold events, workshops, familiarisation trips, webinars etc, we will share your information with our tourism partners, Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Northern Ireland, and with tourism product and service providers e.g. accommodation providers, airlines, event organisers. We will share only minimal information to facilitate these activities.

If you participate in one of our webinars, we may record the webinar and you will be notified in advance of that recording.  The recording may be shared with; all participants after it has taken place, internally with Tourism Ireland staff and externally on our Corporate Websites and other channels. 

If you do not want to be featured in the recording, you can switch off your camera and mute your microphone.  If you do not wish to attend a webinar due to it being recorded, we can make arrangements to share the recording with you after it has taken place, strictly for your use.

You have the right to request Tourism Ireland to stop using any recording in which you are featured at any time, in which case it will not be shared in the future. Note: this will not apply to recordings that have already been distributed if any. Tourism Ireland cannot control already distributed recordings or recall them. 

If we become involved in a merger, acquisition, disposal, re-structuring or any form of sale of some or all of our assets, Your Data will not be transferred to any third party unless there are adequate safeguards in place with the recipient in respect of the security of Your Data.

We may also share Your Data with our third party suppliers who assist us in the provision of the Service.

7. WHAT INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS WITH YOUR DATA DO WE MAKE?

It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer (including transmission, storage and remote access) Your Data to countries outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or the UK. The EEA, UK and other countries outside the EEA have data protection laws that differ from the Data Protection Law, some of which may provide lower levels of protection of Personal Data or privacy rights.

As we are based in Ireland and the United Kingdom, we will transfer Your Data to:

• our affiliates located in Ireland, other countries in the EEA, the United Kingdom and other countries outside the EEA.
• our contractors and service providers located in Ireland, other countries in the EEA, the United Kingdom or other countries outside the EEA. For example:
• if you consent to our use of targeting cookies, Your Data (a unique identifier associated to you) will be sent to the United States. For more information on these recipients, see our Cookies Policy.
• the jurisdiction from where you access our Service.

Unless otherwise permitted by Data Protection Laws, we will only transfer Your Data to a territory outside the EEA where an adequate or equivalent degree of data protection is assured. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that Your Data is treated securely. Such safeguards in place with regard to the transfer of Your Data to third countries include

in the case of transfers subject to the GDPR:

(a)  the country is subject to an ‘adequacy decision’ which means it has been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for Personal Data by the European Commission under Article 45 of the GDPR. A list of countries the European Commission has currently made adequacy decisions in relation to is available here. For example, we rely on adequacy decisions for transfers to the United Kingdom and the United States;

(b)  we enter into appropriate contracts with third parties incorporating standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission under Article 46(2) of the GDPR together with any supplementary measures required appropriate to any risks in the transfer. For further details, see European Commission: Standard contractual clauses for data transfers between EU and non-EU countries. For example, we rely on standard contractual clauses for transfers to the following countries: United States.;

(c)  there are other appropriate safeguards that comply with Chapter V of the GDPR in place, together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or

(d)  a specific exemption applies that is permitted by Article 49 of the GDPR.

In the case of transfers subject to the UK GDPR:

(a)  the country is subject to an adequacy regulation which means it has been determined by the government of the United Kingdom to provide an adequate level of data protection under Article 45 of the UK GDPR. A list of countries the United Kingdom currently has adequacy regulations in relation to is available here. We rely on adequacy regulations for transfers from the United Kingdom to Ireland and other EEA member states;

(b)  there are other appropriate safeguards that comply with Article 46 of the UK GDPR in place, together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or

(c)  a specific exemption applies that is permitted by Article 49 of the UK GDPR.

All information you provide to us is stored on our (or contracted third party) secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access any part of our Service, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with any person not authorised to use the Service.

For more information on transfers of Your Data, please contact us (see ‘How to Contact Us’ below).

8. THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

This Policy applies to websites and services that are owned and operated by us. We do not exercise control over the sites/applications that may be linked from the Service. These other sites/applications may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you. You acknowledge that the Service that we provide may enable or assist you to access the website content of, correspond with, and purchase goods and services from, third parties via third-party websites and that you do so solely at your own risk. We make no representation or commitment and shall have no liability or obligation whatsoever in relation to the content or use of, or correspondence with, any such third-party website, or any transactions completed, and any contract entered into by you, with any such third party and the use by any such third-party of Your Data. We do not endorse or approve any third-party website nor the content of any of the third-party website made available via the Service. We encourage you to carefully familiarize yourself with the terms of use and privacy policies applicable to any websites and/or services operated by third parties. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of any third parties.

9. OFFENSIVE CONTENT

If Your Data contains any material which may reasonably be deemed to be offensive, inappropriate or objectionable or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour in relation to the Service, we may remove such content and/or suspend the use of Your Account. We may also remove any such material from any of our social media pages.

Where we reasonably believe that you are or may be in breach of any applicable laws, for example on hate speech, we may disclose your personal information to relevant third parties, including to law enforcement agencies or your internet provider. We would only do so in circumstances where such disclosure is permitted under applicable laws, including Data Protection Laws.

10.  HOW DO WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We do our utmost to protect user privacy through the appropriate use of security technology. We restrict access to Your Data to employees, contractors and agents who need to know Your Data in order to operate, develop or improve the services that we provide. We ensure that we have appropriate physical and technological security measures to protect your information; and we ensure that when we outsource any processes that the service provider has appropriate security measures in place. However, our Service may contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties. These third party websites have their own privacy policies, including cookies. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.

We will implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risks that are presented by the processing of Your Data. In particular, we will consider the risks presented by accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to Your Data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect Your Data, we cannot guarantee the security of any data transmitted to us and any such transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access. To the extent permitted by law, we are not responsible for any delays, delivery failures, or any other loss or damage resulting from (i) the transfer of data over communications networks and facilities, including the internet, or (ii) any delay or delivery failure on the part of any other service provider not contracted by us, and you acknowledge that our Service may be subject to limitations, delays and other problems inherent in the use of such communications facilities. You will appreciate that we cannot guarantee the absolute prevention of cyber-attacks such as hacking, spyware and viruses. Accordingly, you will not hold us liable for any unauthorized disclosure, loss or destruction of Your Data arising from such risks.

11. BREACH REPORTING  

We will notify serious data breaches in respect of Your Data to the DPC without undue delay, and where feasible, not later than 72 hours after having become aware of same. If notification is not made after 72 hours, we will record a reasoned justification for the delay; however, it is not necessary to notify the DPC where the Personal Data breach is unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons. A Personal Data breach in this context means a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, Personal Data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed.

We will keep a record of any Personal Data breaches, including their effects and the remedial action taken, and will notify you of any Personal Data breach affecting Your Data (which poses a high risk to you) when we are required to do so under Data Protection Laws. We will not be required to notify you of a Personal Data breach where:

we have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures that render the Personal Data unintelligible to anyone not authorised to access it, such as encryption; or

we have taken subsequent measures which ensure that the high risk to data subjects is not likely to materialise; or

it would involve disproportionate effort, in which case we may make a public communication instead.

12. RETENTION OF PERSONAL DATA 

Your Data will be kept and stored for such period of time as we deem necessary taking into account the purpose for which it was collected in the first instance. This may include retaining Your Data as necessary to administer Your Account, comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, to enforce our agreements, to support business operations, and to continue to develop and improve our Service.

 We generally keep Your Data for 3 years after you stop engaging with us, e.g. interacting with our newsletters or our Website, not attending our events. We then delete Your Data from our databases.

For further information on the period for which we retain Your Data or the criteria we use to determine that retention period, please contact us (see ‘15. How to contact us?’ below).

For more information on how long cookies and other identifiers are stored, please see our Cookies Policy.

Where we retain information for Service improvement and development, we take steps to eliminate information that directly identifies you, and we only use the information to uncover collective insights about the use of our Service, not to specifically analyse personal characteristics about you.

13. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY 

We may change this Policy from time to time and at our sole discretion. The date of the most recent revisions will appear on the top of this Policy. If you do not agree to these changes, please do not continue to use the Service to submit Your Data. If material changes are made to this Policy, we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on our Service or by sending you a notification in relation to this. We will not process Your Data in a manner not contemplated by this Policy without your consent.

14. HOW TO CONTACT US

If you need to contact us with regard to any of your rights as set out in this Policy, all such requests should be made in writing by email to dpo@tourismireland.com.

You can contact us and our Data Protection Officer by post, email or telephone, if you have any questions about this Policy or Your Data, to exercise a right under Data Protection Law (see further under ‘5. What rights do you have?’ above), or to make a complaint.

Our Data Protection Officer’s contact details are:

• dpo@tourismireland.com
• Tourism Ireland, 5th Floor Bishop's Square, Redmond's Hill, Dublin D02 TD99, Ireland
• +353 1 476 3400