Privacy Policy

We use cookies in two ways:

1. USI.ie may place a cookie on a site to ensure that timed information is not served to a user repeatedly
   1. USI doesn’t use the cookie (if it’s deployed) to extract any other information from you.
2. research.usi.ie uses cookies to make sure that an individual user cannot submit more than a limited number of responses to a survey.

USI collects (and then deletes) personally identifiable information from any user in six key ways:

1. Where a user submits a comment, remark or query in response to an article on the site
   • If we publish the comment, remark or query, it won’t normally be deleted ever, but may be if the website infrastructure changes.  You should understand this before you submit a comment to our website.
   • USI reserves the right to delete or withhold from publication any comment, remark or query at its absolute discretion. If we do that, we’ll delete it from the comments queue as well, so the information won’t be retained.
   • If we delete the article, the comment, remark or query will be deleted as well.
2. Where a user opts to answer questions in a survey on the site or on http://research.usi.ie
   • Note that any survey entered on research.usi.ie will have its own data retention policy.
   • Our surveys normally collect data in a non-identifiable way, with an opt-in for any incentive offered for completion.
   • When we’ve completed distribution of any incentives, we’ll delete the personally identifiable information of any person not receiving an incentive or award.
   • We may ask recipients of incentives to consent to their name (and perhaps a photograph) being used on the USI website and social channels to prove that the incentives actually do exist!
3. Where a user submits a failure or 404 notification to the administrator
   • We’ll delete this information as soon as the failure or 404 is rectified and any response to the submitter is complete
4. Where a user submits information for the purposes of booking a place at an event
   • Data which could be used to contact the person will be retained until one month after the completion of the event
   • Some data may be retained for business purposes for a period specified in the event booking information or for a shorter period.
   • All other data may be retained for the purposes of the retention of an historical record or for future event planning purposes.  Data of this sort retained will be stripped of contact information.
5. Where a person is mentioned in an article on the website
   • As this is the purpose of the website, this will be archived for retention in the historical record.  It’s always possible that a decision may be made to delete an article or item on the site.
6. Where a person submits information to take part in a poll or survey where they may opt in to be contacted for possible participation in promotional or media activities.  This data will be held for a maximum period of three months unless stated otherwise in the poll or survey.

• USI.ie does not send any information to any third party for the purposes of identifying USI’s users.
• USI.ie will co-operate with law enforcement agencies if required to under the laws in the jurisdictions in which USI operates.

USI does not have a dedicated Data Protection Officer, but any queries on your own data can be addressed to the General Manager of USI by email on manager@usi.ie