Privacy Policy
We, the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), are Ireland’s largest farming representative organisation. We have protected and defended the interests of Irish farmers in all sectors for more than 60 years.
We represent Irish farmers at home and in Europe, lobbying and campaigning for improved conditions and incomes for farm families.
We also provide representation, support and advice to our members on an individual basis.
IFA is a democratic association, organised in branches, County Executive and National Committees. Through our democratic structure, each member can have their say.
We may collect, use and store your personal data, as described in this Data Privacy Policy and as described when we collect data from you in other ways, such as at meetings and events.
We reserve the right to amend this Data Privacy Policy from time-to-time without prior notice. You are advised to check this page on our website (IFA.ie/privacy) or through other communications you receive from us, for any amendments.
We will always comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when dealing with your personal data. Further details on the GDPR.
We have implemented General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards for technology and operational security so as to best protect personal data from loss, misuse, or unauthorised intrusion, alteration or destruction.
We have applied secure certification and encryption for hardware and software (including websites and apps) to best protect your data, but please be aware that transmitting information to us over the internet can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure.
For any payments we take offline, over the phone and online, we use recognised and regulated secure payment systems.
We will notify you promptly in the event of any breach of your personal data which might expose you to a serious risk.
We will never transfer your personal data outside of the EU without your consent.
What information do we collect and why?
| Type of Information | Purposes & Legitimate Reasons |
|---|---|
| Members’ and other users’ name, date of birth, gender, address, telephone number(s), email address(es), farm business type, farm schemes involvement, farm size and farming model (leased/owned), and occupational status (full-time/part-time). | We collect this information for performing the Association’s contract with the member and for the purpose of our legitimate interest in representing and supporting farmers on a collective and individual basis, and protecting the member’s vital interests and those of their dependents. We collect this information for managing the member’s membership, and their designated family member’s membership (if any) with the Association and to represent the member on an individual and collective basis. We may also use this information in the future, to allow members access “members only” sections of our websites and phone apps. If a member is seeking election or takes up an officer role in the Association, this information is also used to verify and validate the membership in accordance to the IFA structure, constitution and rules, click here for more details. An officer of the Association may also be required to partake in initiatives that may require additional data processing and/or third party processing inline with the legitimate interest of supporting and furthering the Associations objectives in representing members, click here for more details. We also use this information for communicating with members directly through the post, email, phone, SMS and other communication channels and digital mediums. This includes contact through, and by, your elected IFA representatives, officers and leaders including local representatives. This communication can be about your membership, promotions and offers, upcoming events of relevance, policy and lobbying updates and for the purposes of conducting research to better serve our members, inter alia. Members can opt-out of some or all of these communications by contacting [email protected] or following the rules of the platform being used. In the case of SMS, you can opt-out directly by replying ‘STOP’ or ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’ to any text message from IFA as is standard. We collect age related information for managing membership categories which are age restricted and age related such as the ‘retired members’ and ‘honorary members’ categories. Gender information is recorded for the provision of adequate facilities for our members. |
| As designated by the main IFA member, a family member’s name, date of birth, gender, address, telephone number(s), email address(es), farm business type, farm size. | We collect this information for performing the Association’s contract with the member and for the purpose of our legitimate interest in representing and supporting farmers on a collective and individual basis, and protecting the member’s vital interests and those of their dependents. |
| Other relevant personal and farming information such as the member’s herd number. | We sometimes require a member’s herd number when representing and supporting our members in dealings with the department of agriculture. We sometimes require financial and legal records when representing members in financial, credit and legal cases. At times we may record your discussions with our membership support and sales teams, including call recordings. This includes when you contact our membership support and sales teams over the phone, share comments and opinions with us, ask us questions or make a complaint, including when you phone us and over email and social media channels. We collect this information for performing the Association’s contract with the member and for the purpose of our legitimate interest in representing and supporting farmers on a collective and individual basis, and protecting the member’s vital interests and those of their dependents. |
| Photos and videos of members. | We sometimes use photos and videos of members and officers on our websites, apps and social media pages and for use in press releases. When representing IFA, members are to avoid taking pictures of minors (under 18 years of age) without explicit consent. IFA also requires IFA representatives to seek consent for the use of non-IFA members’ images. Please contact [email protected] for more direct guidance on image and video consent at IFA events. |
| Member or non-members’ name and address and the instruction to opt out of the IFA Levy Scheme (“the Levy”) | We collect this information as part of the opt-out process of the Levy. We collect this information to allow IFA to tailor their support services regarding farmers who do not wish to contribute the levy towards the funding of IFA. The information will not be used for any other purposes. Any personal data obtained on foot of the Opt-out Form will be held for a period of 6 years. |
| Bank account details, debit and/or credit card details of the member or other person making payment to the Association. | We require the member’s or other’s bank account bank account details, debit and/or credit card details for managing the member’s and other’s membership of the Association, and the provision of services, benefits and events. |
We track the websites and webpages that our users visit, in order to determine what content and services are the most popular. This data is used to better tailor our content and services to you by allowing us to understand better what you are interested in.
Our websites use “cookies” and analytics to help personalise and optimise our users’ online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.
One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalise Irish Farmers’ Association pages, or register with Irish Farmers Association site or services, a cookie helps Irish Farmers’ Association to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the features that you customised.
You have the ability to accept or decline cookies by clicking the cookie banner when you first visit our websites. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Irish Farmers’ Association services or websites you visit.
Social Media Channels
IFA is active on multiple social media services, each one with its own particular rules and policies. Please refer to the individual social media service for details on its privacy and data protection policies. IFA’s social media house rules on interacting with our social media accounts can be located here.
We may give your personal data to third parties who are service providers, agents or partners to us for the purposes of completing operational tasks, conducting research and providing services and benefits to you, on our behalf e.g. insurance discounts, exclusive affinity deals and printing your membership booklet, renewal letters and member newsletters and carrying out research on how to better service and communicate the needs of our members.
However, we disclose only the personal data that is necessary for the third party to deliver the service and we have contracts in place that requires third parties to keep your data secure and not use it for their own purposes.
We will hold your personal data for as long as you are a member of the Association, and for as long afterwards as is necessary for the running of the Association, such as membership reactivation requests and for compliance with any future legal obligations, such as where we have supported you and represented you in legal, financial or governmental interactions, and the establishment exercise or defence of legal claims.
We will review your personal data every year to establish whether we are still entitled to process it. If it is decided that we are not entitled to do so, we will stop processing your personal data and will retain it in an archived form.
We have a destruction process in place for all financial information once we have processed it and it is no longer required.
Your rights
You have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
- to access your personal data;
- to be provided with information about how your personal data is processed;
- to have your personal data corrected;
- to have your personal data erased in certain circumstances;
- to object to or restrict how your personal data is processed; and
- to have your personal data transferred to yourself in a standard format.
You have the right to find out if we have personal data about you and, if we do, to apply for a copy of your personal data.
You may do so, by emailing: [email protected]
We may refuse to grant an access request, if the request is deemed manifestly unfounded or excessive.