Privacy Statement

Your support, your privacy and your trust are of utmost importance to Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI). Please read the information below to understand how your personal data submitted through our website and via social media is managed.

Who are we?

Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) ‘we’ are the Data Controller for personal data processed via this website. We are registered with the Companies Registration Oﬃce (Company No. 176421), the Charities Regulatory Authority (Charity No: 20026240) and the Revenue Commissioners (CHY No: 10311).

How to contact us?

If you have any questions about how we process data, including any requests to exercise your access rights please contact our Data Protection Oﬃcer (DPO) at patrice.osullivan@mqi.ie. As a Data Subject you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission (DPC) if you are unhappy with our processing of your personal details. Details of how to lodge a complaint can be found on the Data Protection Commission’s website (www.dataprotection.ie). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the Data Protection Commission, so please contact us in the ﬁrst instance.

Data Protection

We take our responsibility to protect your data seriously and will not collect any personal information about you on this website without your clear knowledge and permission. Any personal information which you volunteer to us will be treated strictly in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, ePrivacy Regulation S.I. 336/2011 and the Data Protection Acts 1988-2018. Where data is submitted it will be used for the stated purpose and any reasonably incidental purposes only.

What personal data is collected and how do we collect it?

Personal data is information that can be used to help identify an individual. It includes, but is not limited to; name, date of birth, address, phone number, email address, credit card details and a record of interactions with us. You may submit your personal data when, for instance, making a donation, applying for a job or requesting information or updates through our website. Personal data can also be collected when you submit a query or compliant, send us your feedback, register to fundraise or volunteer with us, enter a competition or complete a survey.

Technical data collected

We collect non-identiﬁable personal information or aggregated information when you visit our website. When you visit our website the following information is retained about that visit:

The IP address of the visitor’s web server.
The top-level domain name used (for example .ie, .com., .org., .net).
The previous website address from which the visitor reached us, including any search terms used.
Google analytics which shows the traﬃc of visitors around this website (for example pages accessed, the length of time on each page and any documents downloaded).
The type of web browser and operating system used by the website visitor.

For more information about how this website uses cookies and other tracking technologies see our Cookie Policy. MQI will make no attempt to identify individual visitors, or to associate the technical details listed above with any individual. It is our policy to never disclose such technical information in respect of individual website visitors to any third party (apart from our internet service provider, which records such data on our behalf and which is bound by conﬁdentiality provisions in this regard), unless obliged to disclose such information by law. The technical information will be used only by MQI, and only for statistical and other administrative purposes.

Why do we collect your personal data?

MQI collect and process your personal data for the following purposes:

In order to respond to queries
In order to process donations via Stripe, our payment processor
To assist with claiming tax back from Revenue
To enable us to provide you with a more personalised service
Marketing
In order to process your job application via this website

Occasionally we may send you information about MQI’s activities, including appeals, campaigns and feedback on how your donations are used. We may also contact you for fundraising purposes or for administration on your current donations. We will always seek your consent and ask if you would like to be kept informed about our work, so you are aware of how your donation is used. We occasionally use personal data, that has been anonymised, for research, proﬁling and analysis to enable us to improve our service.

Lawful Bases for processing personal data

The lawful basis to process this personal data include:

Your demonstrated consent for us to process your personal data for one or more speciﬁc purposes. (e.g., to send you information about upcoming fundraising campaigns).
Our legitimate interests in conducting our business ensuring the proper management and functioning of MQI. (e.g., where we process data so that we can respond to a query, complaint or feedback).
Compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that applies to us. (e.g., when we process a CHY3 form as part of the donation process – tax/revenue).
The performance of a contract with you or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. (e.g. when we process a job application where you send it to us via this website or by email).

Signing a petition

By signing a petition for us on social media or our website you agree to have your name, first and last, forwarded to the target of the action. Your name will be collected into a petition list, and when it is time to send in the list of names signed up to the petition, that list will be emailed to the target with a cover email about the subject matter. Alternatively, this may also be done in hard copy format in which case a letter and printout of all the names will be handed over or posted to the target. When you sign a petition via Meta’s lead generation form, in addition to signing the petition, you will also be agreeing to have your email address added to our email list and you will receive one call about homelessness and how you can help. You can opt out of communications from Merchants Quay at any time by emailing fundraising@mqi.ie

Do we share your information?

We respect your personal data and will never sell, rent or give away your personal details to other organisations for any marketing purposes. The only exception is when we must give your personal data where we are required by law. We do have trusted and carefully vetted Data Processor partners that provide specialist services, which requires they have some access to our stored personal data for speciﬁc and limited issues. These partners include mailing houses, marketing agencies, I.T. specialists and call centres. The type of work we may ask them to do could include; processing card payments, managing contact details on our databases to avoid duplication and reduce marketing costs, printing and packing our mailings and carrying out analysis. All our partners are required, by a written contract with us, to treat your data as carefully as we would, to only use it as instructed, to comply with all data protection legislation and to permit us to check that they are only doing what we have instructed them to do with your personal data.

Our commitment to data security

We place great importance on the security of all personal data. We will always endeavour to protect your data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access or disclosure, alteration or destruction. Merchants Quay Ireland has put in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the personal information we collect. For example:

All information you provide to us is stored on secure servers.
Only authorised personnel are allowed access personal data.
We use secure server software (SSL) to encrypt ﬁnancial and personal information you input online before it is sent to us.
When we no longer need information, we will always dispose of it securely, using specialist companies if necessary to do this work for us.
We are committed to investing in technology to provide security for your information, including working with leading suppliers of secure payment services.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any transmission and you transfer the personal data at your own risk. We can only be responsible for the information you send to us from the time when we actually receive it.

International data transfers

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to a third party who stores the data outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). This only occurs where there is no alternative and MQI is satisﬁed that the third party treat the personal data to the same safeguards as apply within the EEA. Examples of safeguards include an EU adequacy agreement, a standard contractual clause (model clause) which is referred to as an SCC.

Children

This website is not intended for children, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children. If you are under 16, please ensure that you have a parent or guardian’s permission before providing MQI with any personal data. If you provide us with personal data we will assume that you are over 16 and that you understand the terms of this Privacy Statement, unless you inform us otherwise.

Communication preferences

You can change how often we contact you and by what means (mail, phone, email) whenever and as often as you like. Simply call our donor care team on (01) 524 0139 or send an email to info@mqi.ie. If we contact you by email, every message we send will include a link that allows you to control and manage your own communications preferences from us.

Social Media

We operate a number of social media pages (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and YouTube). This statement covers how Merchants Quay Ireland will use any data collected from those pages. It does not cover how the providers of social media websites will use your information. Check the policies of each site to ﬁnd out how they collect information and how to opt out or delete the information.

Links to third parties

Our website contains links to third party websites that we believe may be of interest to you. This privacy statement only governs www.mqi.ie and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or statements that govern third party websites that we might link to.

Your rights

You have the following rights, in certain circumstances and subject to certain restrictions, in relation to your personal data:

Right to access data – You have the right to request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, together with other information about our processing of that personal data.
Right to rectiﬁcation – You have the right to request that any inaccurate data that is held about you is corrected, or if we have incomplete information, you may request that we update the information such that is completed.
Right to erasure – You have the right to request us to delete personal data that we hold about you. This is sometimes referred to as ‘the right to be forgotten.’
Right to restriction of processing or to object to processing – You have the right to request that we no longer process your personal data for particular purposes, or to object to our processing of your personal data for particular purposes.
Right to data portability – You have the right to request us to provide you, or a third party, with a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used machine-readable format.

Restriction of your rights in certain circumstances

Article 23 of the GDPR allows for your rights to be restricted in certain circumstances. In addition, the Data Protection Act 2018 contains certain provisions dealing with the restriction of rights, in particular section 60, which give further effect to the provisions of Article 23. Click here for more information. If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact the MQI Data Protection Oﬃcer at patrice.osullivan@mqi.ie. Please note that in order to authenticate any request we may ask you for a copy of a current driving license or passport so that we may verify your identity. This information will only be used for verification purposes, not stored and securely destroyed once once your ID has been verified.

Data Retention

We will not hold your personal data for longer than is necessary. We retain your personal data for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this Statement, or to comply with our obligation under applicable law and, if relevant, to deal with any claim or dispute that might arise between you and us.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our Cookie Policy, which is published on our website. You can also read more about cookies at the All About Cookies website.

CCTV

We would like you to note that CCTV monitoring is present at all of our locations. Should you attend any of our sites we have CCTV monitoring in place to ensure the safety & security of our service users, staff & visitors, & to protect the security of our premises. There is appropriate signage in place positioned close to the CCTV cameras. This CCTV system is managed in accordance with our CCTV Policy.

Governing Laws & Jurisdiction

This legal policy and all issues regarding this website are governed exclusively by Irish law and are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Irish courts.

Changes to our privacy statement

Any changes we may make to our privacy statement in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notiﬁed to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy statement. This privacy statement was last updated November 2022.