Introduction

The Irish Times has created this privacy statement to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses the information gathering and dissemination practices of The Irish Times.

A user can access our site and utilise a number of our services without providing any information at all. However, all users who register for The Irish Times services provide basic contact and demographic information. We do develop summary - not individual - reports for our advertisers. The people that make it possible for visitors to use The Irish Times for free - our advertisers - need this information to determine how effective their advertising investments are. The Irish Times will not disclose a user's personally identifiable information to any third party without the user's express permission except where applicable for the purpose of supplying the service for which the user has registered.

We do not follow a user's browsing path outside of our websites.

Information The Irish Times collects

Information you voluntarily provide

We collect any information you voluntarily provide through any correspondence with The Irish Times through email or optional sign ups. This information is NOT disclosed to any third party without your prior consent.

For example, if you contact our editorial staff via email, we collect your email address, name and any additional information you include in your email message. Information such as your email address and name may also be collected when you sign up to optional services offered by The Irish Times and our partner services. These services currently include the following:

• Subscription services from The Irish Times: newspaper delivery, epaper, Archive, Crossword and email notifications.
• Subscription services from our partners: Ancestors, Text Alerts, Family Notices and Dating.
• Participation in competitions, promotions and surveys.

Commenting and social media

The Irish Times invites users to leave comments and share articles. In order to do so, you must be logged in to your chosen social network. If you are not already logged in, you will be prompted to do so when you attempt to post a comment or when you select one of the share icons. To leave a comment, you must log in to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn as a means of authentication.

When you log in to one of these networks to leave a comment or share articles, you grant permission to your chosen network to share certain user details. This information could include the user ID associated with your account, any information you have made public in connection with your account and any information you have permitted the network to share (according to your privacy settings). For example, if you log in to comment on The Irish Times via Twitter, The Irish Times receives your avatar and Twitter username to display with your comment.

Cookies

Certain sections of The Irish Times use cookies, small pieces of data sent by a website's server to your computer that allow that website to retrieve your user preferences, to personalise your visits and to simplify any sign-in procedures. To learn more about cookies, please see our Cookie Policy.

Information automatically logged

We log your IP address, browser's user agent and referring address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our website and to identify unique users. Your IP address is also used to gather broad demographic information.

Auditing our traffic figures

We also provide our log file data to ABC electronic auditing bureau on a regular basis to verify our traffic figures. This information is used solely for auditing purposes. However, on the occasion of abuse or harassment, this data may also be used to find and locate individuals abusing the network system and/or services of The Irish Times. In these cases, this data may be passed on to appropriate individuals, organisations or companies, if specifically requested.

Irish Data Protection Commissioner

Further information on your data privacy rights are available on the website of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner: www.dataprivacy.ie.

Advertising

The Irish Times may perform statistical analyses of user behaviour in order to measure interest in the various areas of our site (for product development purposes) and to inform advertisers as to how many consumers have seen or 'clicked' their advertising banners. We may also use demographic and preference information to allow advertising banners on our website to be targeted, in aggregate, to the readers for whom they are most pertinent. This means that users may see advertising that is most likely to interest them, and advertisers may send their messages to people who are most likely to be receptive, improving both the viewer's experience and the effectiveness of the ads.

For the purposes of statistical analysis and banner advertisement targeting, we will disclose information to third parties only in aggregate form. Personal information about you as an individual subscriber will not be provided to any third party without your consent.

We use a third-party advertising company to serve ads when you visit our website. Our third-party advertising company separately places or recognises a cookie file on your browser in the course of delivering advertisements to The Irish Times. For full details of our third-party advertising company's terms and conditions, please visit www.adtech.com.

Financial information

Certain online purchase options require users to provide financial information (such as their credit card numbers) and demographic information (such as their address etc.). Financial information collected is used solely to bill the user for products and services.

Surveys & competitions

From time to time, our website requests information from users via surveys or competitions. Participation in these surveys or competitions is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may include contact details (such as name and delivery address) and demographic information (such as address, age and income level). Contact information will be used to notify the winners and award prizes; demographic information will be used for purposes of monitoring and improving the website. No personal information will be retained for longer than is necessary or used for any undisclosed purpose.

Promotions and competitions that run on The Irish Times may be sponsored by companies other than The Irish Times or may be co-sponsored by The Irish Times and another company.

The Irish Times or its sponsors or business partners may, with your expressed permission, send you e-mails regarding its products and services.

External links

This site contains links to other sites. The Irish Times is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

Security

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100 per cent secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, The Irish Times cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services – you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Opt-in to receive promotional material

Our site provides users with the opportunity to opt-in to receive promotional/marketing information from The Irish Times, The Irish Times and select advertisers via email. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time by following the 'unsubscribe' link at the footer of the email page.

Special interest sites

The Irish Times provides certain services in conjunction with third parties. These third parties have their own security and privacy policies. You are advised to review these separately.

Correcting and updating

The Irish Times offers users the ability to change certain personal identifiable information (e.g. email address) collected during the signup process for specific services.

Contact Us

If you have any questions regarding this privacy statement or the security practices of The Irish Times, pleases send them to services@irish-times.com.