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PlanningAlerts.ie Privacy Statement

Effective: Aug. 8th 2019

Summary of Privacy Statement

This policy covers how PlanningAlerts.ie treats Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) that is collected, stored and processed through the service. PlanningAlerts.ie is used to send alerts and notifications to subscribers based on their account preferences. Preferences include an ability for subscribers to set geographic areas of interest to ensure they only receive localized notifications. Alerts are issued through a combination of SMS, Email, app notifications and chat applications. At all times the subscriber is in control of what information they receive, the locational relevance of alerts, as well as an ability to quickly unsubscribe from the service in a few easy ways. This privacy statement sets out how PlanningAlerts.ie and Pin Point Alerts Ltd (the company that owns the service and is the Data Controller and Data Processor) processes subscriber personal data, secures this personal data, and the various company policies that adheres to General Data Protection Regulation.

The following Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) is gathered from registered users (“subscribers”):

1. Name
PlanningAlerts.ie uses your name for billing and account management (billing/invoicing) purposes, including any support queries to verify account ownership.

2. Email Address
PlanningAlerts.ie uses your email address for two core reasons; (i) the email acts as the username to log into the service and (ii) the email address is used to disseminate alerts & notifications to the subscriber. The email address is a unique entity in the PlanningAlerts.ie database and it is also used to reset your account password, if you forget it. In extremely rare cases your email address is used to send out service updates, policy changes and changes to the PlanningAlerts.ie terms and conditions if further consent is required.

3. Irish Mobile Number (optional)
PlanningAlerts.ie includes an optional feature to contact subscribers by SMS text message to advise on for new planning alerts & notifications. The subscriber must verify their mobile number in their account panel on the PlanningAlerts.ie website. This feature is limited to certain account access levels.

4. Password
You need to authenticate with PlanningAlerts.ie to access your account. Passwords are created at registration and they are salted/hashed on the PlanningAlerts.ie server – passwords are never stored in plain text and are unseen by the service providers. For good password management, it is recommended to use unique passwords for each web service you access and PlanningAlerts.ie is no different.

5. At least one preferred mapped location
PlanningAlerts.ie offers focused alerts that are locally relevant to subscribers. To make this happen, PlanningAlerts.ie allows you to add mapped locations for which you want to receive alerts. A minimum of one location is required while additional locations can be provided based on the account access level. It is up to the subscriber to map their location on the system and to provide the level of accuracy they are satisfied with. It is not necessary to map exactly to a home location – the centre of a town or townland is usually sufficient to ensure you get the planning alerts that impact you. PlanningAlerts.ie stores coordinates statically in a database after they are updated by the subscriber and PlanningAlerts.ie does not track your location at any time. Coordinates are stored as a Latitude Longitude pair.

6. IP address
An Internet protocol (“IP”) address is the unique number assigned to your Internet communicator device or Internet Service Provider (“ISP”). PlanningAlerts.ie may track such IP addresses for system administration, site tracking, to prevent our servers from being abused and for other uses described in this Privacy Policy.

Planning Application and Commencement Notice Personal Data Policy:

The PlanningAlerts.ie system does not store any personal information taken from the planning applications. This data is not made available to PlanningAlerts.ie and it is not accessible to us in any way. For GDPR purposes, we do not expect to hold any personal data on planning applications or commencement notices at any time, now or in the future. However, this level of information is hosted on each local authority website and the PlanningAlerts.ie service provides links to this relevant information (ie, a hyperlink to an external Council or BCMS website).

Summary of how we use the information we gather:

We use the personal information (PII) to allow you to manage your unique PlanningAlerts.ie account and experience. We require your contact and location details to correctly send you notifications, and we require a unique username (email address) for you to create and access your account. Your password is also used to access your PlanningAlerts.ie account. To send you accurate, localized alerts and notifications we require coordinate information about your preferred location(s) - this can be accurate to your town/city and not necessarily to your exact home location. In the case of poor behaviour on our site (e.g., web scraping) we may use your IP Address to identify any potential threats or insulting behaviour and to block it from accessing PlanningAlerts.ie.

The people that are given access to your personal information:

PlanningAlerts.ie (Pin Point Alerts Ltd) is the sole owner of the PlanningAlerts.ie user database. We will solely use your PII details for the purposes of identifying if you should receive any alerts/notification and, subsequently, we will use your contact details to correctly deliver the information to you through a preferred channel (eg email, SMS, app notification). At no time is the PlanningAlerts.ie subscriber database made available to external 3rd parties, nor is it foreseen to engage with external companies that can access the subscriber database at any time. If this policy changes then all subscribers will be notified by email. If PlanningAlerts.ie engages 3rd party agencies for any IT development work then it will take place on a cloned version of PlanningAlerts.ie with an empty subscriber database.

The security measures we have in place to protect your personal information:

We have put in place reasonable and appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to help safeguard information we collect through PlanningAlerts. However, you should know that no company or web service, including PlanningAlerts.ie (Pin Point Alerts Ltd), can fully eliminate security risks associated with Personally Identifiable Information (PII). To help protect yourself, please use a strong password, do not use the same passwords to access your PlanningAlerts.ie accounts that you use with other accounts or services, and protect your user names and passwords to help prevent others from accessing your accounts and services.

Deleting/Closing your Account to remove all personal data:

A subscriber can choose to delete their account at any time and they will be instantly removed from the live PlanningAlerts.ie database. Accounts that are deleted are done so in a self-service manner by the subscriber on the PlanningAlerts.ie website and this is an irreversible step. Account details cannot be recovered once an account deletion is triggered. However, PII we collect will be contained in secure encrypted backups for a maximum of 14 days after a subscriber has unsubscribed from the system. The 14-day period is part of Pin Point Alerts Ltd’s corporate backup strategy and is within a reasonable time to remove the subscriber. Accidental account deletions cannot be recovered from backups. The sole purpose of backups is to restore the complete service from a backup, if necessary.

What Choices Do We Give You and How Can You View, Correct or Review Your Personal Information?

i. Login to PlanningAlerts.ie to manage or delete your account
PlanningAlerts.ie allows subscribers to login and manage their account with the username (email address) and password they created during the registration process. The login area is accessed from www.planningalerts.ie/login. After a subscriber logs into the PlanningAlerts.ie website they can use the Account Manage menu section to navigate to the Account Close/Delete item. Clicking into this menu item will ask for confirmation before the account is instantly deleted.

ii. Subject Access Requests
PlanningAlerts.ie is owned and operated by Pin Point Alerts Ltd, which operates several “alert” services apart from PlanningAlerts. To make Subject Access Requests (SAR) easier, subscribers can request a copy of the data that PlanningAlerts.ie / Pin Point Alerts stores on them from a dedicated SAR website at https://sar.pinpointalerts.com. Subscribers can create a temporary account by including their mobile number or email address which are the core Personally Identifiable Information (PII) unique identifiers in PlanningAlerts.ie. Once you search for your mobile number or email address on this website, we will determine if it part of any system operated by Pin Point Alerts in its capacity as a Data Controller or Data Processor. Temporary (24 hour) login details are sent by SMS or Email, depending on how the subscriber searched for their PII. After the subscriber logs into the SAR website they can view and print reports about the information stored on them. They are also advised where to go and who to contact to make changes to the details. In the case of PlanningAlerts, they will be directed to a wbe page instructing how to login and delete their account in a self-service way (i, above).

Our use of cookies:

The PlanningAlerts.ie website makes use of cookies which are small digital files that are stored in your web browser that enable us to track your return visits to our website. We use cookies to ensure an improved user experience and to provide feedback on how the service is used. The purpose of cookies on www.PlanningAlerts.ie is also used to speed up the load time for web pages on subsequent visits to the website. Your browser settings may allow you to block these cookies, which is fine and the service will continue to operate, but we recommend you have them enabled to help us personalise your experience of the PlanningAlerts.ie website and ensure a smooth user experience. Most cookies are internally generated by PlanningAlerts.ie, however external cookie providers include Google (Google Analytics), Hotjar (understandign user experiences) and ESRI/ArcGIS (web mapping).

Third Party Analytics:

We may provide anonymous data to third party analytics companies (i.e. no PII data is transferred) to help us understand how PlanningAlerts.ie is being used and to help us make improvements. The PlanningAlerts.ie website solely uses Google Analytics for its website analytics management. ArcGIS Online (ESRI) maps are used throughout the PlanningAlerts.ie service and analytics are gathered to track performance and usage levels. Hotjar is used to determine how our website is being used and to assist us in improving the web design and overall user experience.

Marketing & Reviews:

PlanningAlerts.is uses Trustpilot to request reviews for subscriber accounts each time a subscription is purchased. Trustpilot is a data processor working on behalf of Pin Point Alerts Ltd / PlanningAlerts.ie. You may receive email(s) from Trustpilot on behalf of PlanningAlerts.ie within a short time after you make a purchase with us. Trustpilot automatically deletes all data (ie email address) within 30 days of a sale on PlanningAlerts.ie. See https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001157168 for further information 

Where does the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) database and backups reside?

All aspects of PlanningAlerts.ie including databases and websites are hosted within the European Union. At no stage is PII transferred to a 3rd country outside of the European Union. Backups are fully encrypted and stored securely in Ireland for a maximum period of 14 days before self-deleting. We are happy to share further information on our storage and security practices with our paid clients and paid subscribers at any time.

Questions and Complaints

If you believe PlanningAlerts.ie maintains your personal data (PII) incorrectly then you may direct any inquiries or complaints concerning our Data Protection and GDPR compliance to privacy.planningalerts@pinpointalerts.com. We will respond within a maximum of 3 working days. If you want us to forcibly remove you from the PlanningAlerts.ie system (i.e. you are not able to use the PlanningAlerts.ie Close/Delete feature listed above) then it will take up to 7 working days. If we fail to respond within that time, or if our response does not address your concern, then please contact Pin Point Alerts Ltd directly at 01 2544363. It may be a case that your email did not arrive, and we want to ensure we deal with your inquiry as soon as possible.

How We May Update Our Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may collect and use Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in ways not previously disclosed in our Privacy Policy. For example, if new alert channels come on board that require PlanningAlerts.ie to store further PII then we will advise you about this. Therefore, if our information practices change we will post any adjustments to our policy on this website and change the “Last Updated” date above. Unless additional notice or further consent is explicitly required by applicable laws, this will serve as your notification of these changes. You will not be “auto-consented” into any new parts of PlanningAlerts.ie that require additional PII. If you are concerned about how your information is used, bookmark this page on your web browser and check back periodically.