Privacy Statement of the European Social Fund
This statement relates to our privacy practices in connection
with this website. We are not responsible for the content or privacy
practices of other websites. Any external links to other websites are
clearly identifiable as such. Some technical terms used in this
statement are explained at the end of this page.
General statement
The European Social Fund fully respects your right to
privacy, and will not collect any personal information about you on
this website without your clear permission. Any personal information
which you volunteer to this Department will be treated with the highest
standards of security and confidentiality, strictly in accordance with
the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003.
Collection and use of personal information
The European Social Fund does not collect any
personal data about you on this website, apart from information which
you volunteer (for example by e-mailing us or by using our online
contact us form). Any personal information which you provide in this
way is not made available to any third parties, save as required by
law, and is used by this Department only in line with the purpose for
which you provided it. In certain circumstances, some detail provided
to us on our Freedom of Information (FOI) application form may be
required to be provided to other third parties about whom information
is being sought, as is required under the FOI Act. If you have any
questions about this aspect of FOI our Freedom of Information Unit
would be happy to clarify the position.
Collection and use of technical information
This website does not use cookies, apart from temporary "session"
cookies which enable a visitor's web browser to remember which pages on
this website have already been visited. Visitors can use this website
with no loss of functionality if cookies are disabled from the web
browser.
Technical details in connection with visits
to this website are logged by our internet service provider for our
statistical purposes. No information is collected that could be used by
us to identify website visitors. The technical details logged are
confined to the following items:
- the IP address of the visitor's web server the top-level domain name used (for example .ie, .com, .org, .net)
- clickstream data which shows the traffic of visitors around this web site (for example pages accessed and documents downloaded)
- the type of web browser used by the website visitor.
- the version of the operating system used by the visitor
The European Social Fund will make no
attempt to identify individual visitors, or to associate the technical
details listed above with any individual. It is the policy of the
Department never to 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 a rule of law. The technical information
will be used only by this Department, and only for statistical and
other administrative purposes. You should note that technical details,
which we cannot associate with any identifiable individual, do not
constitute "personal data" for the purposes of the Data Protection
Acts, 1988 & 2003.
Glossary of technical terms used
Web browser
The piece of software you use to read web pages. Examples are Microsoft
Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape Navigator and Opera.
IP address
The identifying details for your computer (or your internet company's
computer), expressed in "internet protocol" code (for example
192.168.72.34). Every computer connected to the web has a unique IP
address, although the address may not be the same every time a
connection is made.
Cookies
Small pieces of information, stored in simple text files, placed on
your computer by a web site. Cookies can be read by the web site on
your subsequent visits. The information stored in a cookie may relate
to your browsing habits on the web page, or a unique identification
number so that the web site can "remember" you on your return visit.
Generally speaking, cookies do not contain personal information from
which you can be identified, unless you have furnished such information
to the web site.