Privacy Policy
28/6/23
This policy provides details of how we collect and process your personal data through use of our website www.deirdremcaree.com and during the course of our business (Deirdre McAree Consulting) with you.
Your privacy matters to us so we will take our responsibility seriously. If you have trusted us with any information about yourself via the website, this policy lets you know how we will use that information and why. It explains when and why we collect information, how we use it, the situations other people can see or use it, and how we keep it secure.
Please read the policy carefully and contact us with any questions or concerns.
Who we are
Name: Deirdre McAree Consulting
Name & contact details of the data controller: Deirdre McAree - info@deirdremcaree.com
Our data regulator: ICO Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
What information do we collect?
We collect data via a contact form (webform) submission on our website. By providing us with your data, you warrant to us that you are over 18 years of age.
When you submit information to this website via webform, we collect the data requested in the webform in order to track and respond to your submissions. We share this information with Squarespace, our online store hosting provider, so that they can provide website services to us. We also share this information with the website administrator’s email address for storage.
The personal information we collect when a user completes a contact form is: first name, surname, email address.
We may process information on you if you are a prospect, client, or a client contact.
How do we use personal information?
Personal data is any information that identifies you personally whether directly (e.g. your name) or indirectly (e.g information about your use of our services)
We may collect the following data about you:
Contact details: your name, email address and telephone number so that we can contact you in response to an enquiry you make via our site or in relation to services we have from time to time agreed to provide to you.
Correspondence: we collect any additional personal data you may provide from time to time if you contact us by email, letter or telephone, through our site, by submitting a comment (via the contact form) on our site, or by any other means.
Survey responses: information from surveys that we use for research purposes, if you choose to respond to them
Transaction details: we will collect information in relation to transactions for the purposes of fulfilling our services
Details of visits to the site: This website is hosted by Squarespace. Squarespace collects personal data when you visit this website, including Information about your browser, network and device, Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website, Web pages you view while on this website, Your IP address. Squarespace needs the data to run this website, and to protect and improve its platform and services. Squarespace analyzes the data in a de-personalized form.
We will use your personal data for the following purposes
To provide you with the services you have requested as a new or returning customer in accordance with our trading terms.
To send you service communications: we use the contact details you have provided to us so that we can communicate with you about the services we provide, including letting you know about any changes to our services or trading terms
Direct marketing
To track your usage of our website cookies are used (https://www.deirdremcaree.com/cookie-policy)
To provide and improve customer support: we use your personal data to provide and improve the customer support we provide to you e.g. where you have asked questions about our services
To maintain our records and improve data accuracy - like any business, we process personal data in the course of maintaining and administering our internal records. This includes processing your personal data to ensure that the information we hold about you is kept up to date and accurate.
To respond to enquiries, complaints and disputes: we use the personal data we hold about you to help us to respond in the most effective manner.
To investigate, detect and prevent fraud and comply with our legal obligations: In certain circumstances we use your personal data only to the extent required in order to enable us to comply with our legal obligations, including for fraud detection, investigation and prevention purposes. This may require us to provide your personal data to law enforcement agencies if they request it.
We may process information about you that you have yourself provided to us or published generally on the internet through social media or on other websites.
In all cases, we will have what identifying and communication information that is relevant and that we can sensibly obtain: that is, your name, email address, employer or business name, job title or position, contact address, social media addresses, and we may also capture some of the information published by you in your social media output to the extent that it may be relevant to our interactions.
What legal basis do we have for processing your personal data?
Our legal basis for processing your personal data: Where it is necessary for the performance of a contract and to comply with legal obligations. It is necessary for us to process your basic contact details, payment details and information about the business you represent for the performance of the terms of trading between us. We rely on this legal ground to:
Provide you with services
Communicate with you about the services we provide, including letting you know about major changes to those services or the terms of trading between us or any related information
Provide and improve customer support
Notify you about changes to our service
If you choose not to give some or all of the above mentioned information to us, this may affect our ability to provide services to you.
Our legal basis for processing your personal data: Where it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate business interests or those of a third party. It is sometimes necessary to collect and use your personal data for the purposes of our legitimate interests as a business which are to:
Provide you with services that are as useful and beneficial to you as possible, including personalising our contact with you and making sure we tell you about offers that are relevant to you
Better understand our customer base so we can improve our services and marketing activities (which could also benefit you)
Comply with our contractual obligations to third parties
Develop and improve our site
Respond to enquiries or complaints or deal with any dispute which may arise in the course of providing our services to you
Ensure effective operational management and internal administration of our business, document retention, compliance with regulatory guidance and exercise or defence of legal claims
We will not process your personal data unless there is another legal ground for us to do so - For example: you have provided consent.
We do not routinely keep special category data. To the extent we hold this, it was supplied or made publicly available by you. Special Category data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data. We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.
Financial data: If you pay us by BACS or direct transfer, we only know what the bank tells us (usually the name of person who paid us, how much and the reference number)
When do we share personal data?
We do not sell, rent or trade email lists with anyone.
We have outsourced support for our own business who will have limited access to your data e.g., Accounting support - therefore if we invoice you, our accountant needs to process the information in the invoice.
Analytics
This website collects personal data to power our site analytics, including:Information about your browser, network, and device, Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website, Your IP address. This information may also include details about your use of this website, including: Clicks, Internal links, Pages visited, Scrolling, Searches, Timestamps.
We share this information with Squarespace, our website analytics provider, to learn about site traffic and activity.
Fonts
This website serves font files from and renders fonts using Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts. To properly display this site to you, these third parties may receive personal information about you, including:
· Information about your browser, network, or device
· Information about this site and the page you’re viewing on it
· Your IP address
Where do we store and process personal data?
As a small business, we use mainstream software packages e.g. for email, our website, accounting.
This means that some of your data may be held in the EEA (Europe) and some held in services in the USA (with suitable data privacy shields) or elsewhere. We have picked mainstream suppliers with appropriate security standards (e.g. This website is hosted by Squarespace).
Deirdre McAree Consulting will not intentionally disclose any personally identifying information about you to third parties, except where we believe, in good faith, such disclosure is necessary to comply with the law or enforce our Terms of Use.
How do we secure personal data?
Deirdre McAree Consulting shall use commercially reasonable efforts to restrict unauthorized access to our data and files. However no system whether or not password protected can be entirely impenetrable. You acknowledge that it may be possible for an unauthorized third party to access, view, copy, modify, or distribute the data you provide using this Site. Use of the Site is completely at your own risk.
How long do we keep your personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. When deciding what the correct time is to keep the data for we look at its amount, nature and sensitivity, potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure, the processing purposes, if these can be achieved by other means and legal requirements.
Our data retention period: 6 years
For tax purposes the law requires us to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they stop being customers.
We will securely erase your personal data from our systems when it is no longer needed.
Your rights in relation to personal data
Under the GDPR, data subjects have rights to access and control their personal data.
Rights: What does this mean?
1.Rights to be informed
You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent and easily understandable information about how we use your personal data and your rights. This is why we are providing you with the information in this Privacy Policy.
2.Right of access
You have the right to obtain access to your personal data (if we are processing it) and certain other information (similar to that provided in this Privacy Policy). This is so you are aware and can check that we are using your personal data in accordance with data protection law.
3.Right to rectification
You are entitled to have your personal data corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
4.Right to erasure
This is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’ and, in simple terms, enable you to request the deletion or removal of your personal data where there is no compelling reason for us to keep using it. This is not a general right to erasure; there are exceptions.
5.Right to restrict processing
You have the right to ‘block’ or suppress further use of your personal data in certain circumstances. When processing is restricted, we can still store your personal data, but may not use it further.
6.Right of data portability
You have the right to obtain and reuse your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format in certain circumstances. In addition, where certain conditions apply, you have the right to have such information transferred directly to a third party.
7.Right to object to processing
You have the right to object to us processing your personal data for our legitimate business interests or for direct marketing purposes (including in each case any related profiling).
8.Right to withdraw consent to processing
If you have given your consent to us to process your personal data for a particular purpose (for example, direct marketing), you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (although if you do so, it does not mean that any processing of your personal data up to that point is unlawful).
9.Right to make a complaint to the data protection authorities
You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data or believe our processing of your personal data does not comply with data protection law.
If you feel for some reason we have information we should not be keeping, or it is out of date or otherwise wrong, please let us know and we will take appropriate action.
Most of the information we hold is not based on your individual consent but is based on our needing the information to run our business and provide our products and services.
You have a "right to be forgotten" - but that does have some legal limits to it. If you want us to remove information about you, let us know. If you have been a Client, we may not be able to remove all data as we will have to ensure that we can continue to comply with legal, accounting, taxation and our insurer’s requirements.
How to contact us?
Our intention is always to use your information in order to make working with us as smooth as possible. If this is not the case, please make sure to contact us with questions or concerns about your personal information, or if you wish to make a complaint. It’s best to contact us by email at info@deirdremcaree.com
Use of cookies and other technologies
For information on our cookie policy and use of cookies please visit https://www.deirdremcaree.com/cookie-policy
Linking to other websites / third party content
This website may also include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. They do not automatically signify that we endorse those websites or connections. If you follow those links, our privacy and cookie policies cease to apply. Deirdre McAree Consulting shall not be responsible for any performance or service problems caused by any third party website or third party service provider. Any such problem shall be governed solely by the agreement between you and that provider.
Social media
We have an active presence on social media. If you are using social media they are holding and using your information in accordance with their data privacy policy.
If you ‘like’ any of our posts or ‘follow’ us or contact us on social media we keep a record of that. Your replies to us, messages you send us, and your other activity linked to our posts may be seen by members of our staff and by our associates. Our contracts with them hold them to high standards of protecting your information.
Complaints
If you have a complaint about the way we are handling your information or how we have responded to a request for information or removal, you can take this up in the first instance by contacting info@deirdremcaree.com. If we can’t sort it out, the relevant supervisory authority details can be found at Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).