Freedom of Information Privacy Notice

1.0 The purposes and legal basis for the processing

The Freedom of Information Act 2014 (FOI Act) came into force on 14th October 2014. The Act gives a person legal rights to access records, subject to certain exclusions set out in the Act. When making a request under the FOI you provide us with contact details such as your name, an address, a phone number or email address. The legal basis for processing personal data in connection with an FOI request is article 6(1)(c) of GDPR, namely: the processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject – The FOI Act.

Personal data supplied by persons making requests under the FOI Act or submitting queries in relation to it, are collected, processed and shared only for those purposes and in accordance with the relevant sections of the FOI Act.

2.0 The recipients or categories of recipients of the personal data

The personal data you supply to this Council as part of your request, application, internal review, appeal or query under the FOI Act will only be used for the purposes of processing the request, application, internal review, appeal or query and for essential purposes related to delivery of the service to you. This may entail sharing your data with other departments or associated companies of Clare County Council and with any relevant third parties (e.g. county solicitor’s office, relevant contractors or companies) that may be associated with your application. Where a requester makes an appeal to the Information Commissioner all necessary records must be supplied to that office in order for them to process the appeal.

Clare County Council may share the data with other public bodies in order to process your request, for example, where records are held by another public body we may transfer your request, application or query to that body for processing under section 12 of the FOI Act. You will be informed where this occurs.

3.0 The retention periods or the criteria used to determine that period

Records in relation to Freedom of Information requests are held for 5 years under the Local Authority National Records Retention Policy as amended by the LGMA issued retention schedules for local authority records 2018 – 2023. After that, they are securely destroyed.

4.0 Your data rights

You have the right to request access to personal data held about you, rights of rectification and erasure, rights of restriction and objection and rights of portability.  To exercise these rights please see details in the attached link and the sample application forms on our website https://www.clarecoco.ie/your-council/governance/data-protection/ or available on request from the Data Protection office, see contact details below.

Please note that to help protect your privacy, we take steps to verify your identity before granting access to personal data. Further details can be obtained from Clare County Council’s website.

To exercise these rights or if you have any questions on data protection compliance, you should contact Clare County Council Data Protection Officer at the following address: Data Protection Officer, Clare County Council, Áras Contae an Chláir, New Road, Ennis, Clare V95 DXP2, Telephone number: (065) 6846405 or email: dpa@clarecoco.ie.

5.0 Right of complaint to the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the response you received in relation to your request or in relation to exercising your data rights, then you are entitled to make a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner who can investigate the matter for you. The Data Protection Commissioner’s website is: www.dataprotection.ie.

Contact number: (01) 7650100 or 1800437737

Email: info@dataprotection.ie

Postal address: Data Protection Commissioner, Canal House, Station Road, Portarlington, Co Laois, R32 AP23.

Page last reviewed: 20/06/23

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