Privacy Statement

How Benefacts uses information about you

Benefacts may use data about you:

• To manage and assure the integrity of our services
• To fulfill your data or information requests and manage your relationship with us
• To send you information about our website, publications, services, events and other
  matters e.g. user surveys or other materials that you may be interested in
• To expand our online audiences

When Benefacts may disclose information that identifies you

Benefacts may disclose or transfer data that identifies you to other companies or entities only in certain circumstances:

• To vendors that work on our behalf
• To law enforcement or other entities that present valid legal process or in our discretion, unless otherwise prohibited by law, to protect human safety, our rights or the rights of others

Your rights

You have a choice about and control over receiving marketing messages from us. We may contact you by email or SMS messaging.

You may ask Benefacts for a copy of your information, to correct it or erase it.

You also have rights to object to some processing and, where we have asked for your consent to process your data, to withdraw this consent. In particular, you have rights to
object to direct marketing at any time.

Where we process your data because we have a legitimate interest in doing so, you also have a right to object to this. These rights may be limited in some situations – for
example, where we can demonstrate that we have a legal requirement to process your data.

We hope that we can satisfy queries you may have about the way we process your data.
For more information, or to request a change in the status of the data about you that we hold, contact info@benefacts.ie

Privacy Notice contents:

• Who we are
• Why we process your data, the lawful basis for processing your data and who we share it with
• Transfers of data outside the European Economic Area
• Your rights relating to personal data
• Requirement to process personal data
• Automated decision-making and profiling

1. Who we are:

We are Benefacts of 6 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, Ireland. You can contact us by post at this address or by email at info@benefacts.ie. We are a company limited by guarantee without share capital with company registration number 553387.

Our data protection officer may be contacted by emailing dpo@benefacts.ie.

2. Why we process your data, the lawful basis for processing your data and who we share it with

Benefacts Database of Nonprofits

Where your personal data is on our database you are likely to be a company director, trustee, company secretary or auditor of a nonprofit entity in Ireland.

We have obtained your information from a public registry such as the Companies Registration Office, the Charities Regulatory Authority, the Register of Friendly Societies and similar registers, usually under what is called a ‘Re-use of Public Sector Information’ licence.  Sometimes we will have obtained this information from reviewing public registers.

Benefacts’ purpose for processing this data is to make information about nonprofits in Ireland more accessible than is currently the case. The organisations about which it publishes data are established on a not-for-profit basis for public benefit; besides generating earned revenues in a range of ways, they attract funding from Government, from philanthropies and from members of the public. There is a legitimate public interest in their governance and in transparent information about their governing structures, their financial affairs and the identity of the persons responsible for the running of the organisations and the legal basis on which Benefacts process this data is in order to pursue its legitimate interests in furthering the transparency in the nonprofit sector.

The information we process is in the public domain.  It is published on the websites of the CRO, the CRA, Revenue, the DES and others as well as by a number of data re-sellers, in some cases subject to payment of a charge, in other cases free of charge.

The categories of personal data we process about people relating to our database are related to the information submitted to public records such as:

• • • Director or trustee of a nonprofit: name, date of birth (used to differentiate between people of the same name but stored only in a hashed format) and date of appointment or cessation of appointment to the governance of the nonprofit. Sometimes the date of cessation of appointment is inferred from an absence from a future filing rather than a formal document having been filed as not all nonprofit registries require notification of cessation of appointment.
    • The signatories to a constitutional document of a nonprofit: Benefacts processes this data in redacting it from the file so that the data is not visible when the constitution is published on its website to increase data protection.
    • Signatories to financial statements and auditors: this is usually a name and sometimes an address that is visible on the financial statements submitted to regulators and registries about nonprofits.
    • Donor information: in the limited situations where donations are required to be declared on public registries (usually this is from international registries) we may have the donor information on the database.

We republish current data – that is, the names and dates of appointment of currently-serving directors – on our website as a matter of public interest.

We provide information about the number of directors currently serving on specific boards and the duration of their service in analysis and analytic reports to nonprofit organisations, their funders and to other analysts including policy-makers. The data takes the form of aggregated numbers rather than named individuals.

We retain this data for the period of time it is useful for research and statistical purposes.

Website and Services

To help us to maintain and enhance the quality of our website and services, we may collect, store and use the following kinds of personal information:

• • • information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths); Please see our Cookie Notice for retention policies for this data.
    • information that you provide to us when registering with our website or registering via our website for webinars or live events that we organise (including your name and email address);
    • information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our email notifications and/or newsletters (including your name and email address);
    • information that you provide to us when using the services on our website, or that is generated in the course of the use of those services (including the timing, frequency and pattern of service use);
    • information contained in or relating to any communication that you send to us or send through our website (including the communication content and metadata associated with the communication); and
    • any other personal information that you choose to send to us.

Before you disclose to us the personal information of another person, you must obtain that person’s consent to both the disclosure and the processing of that personal information in accordance with this policy.

The legal basis for this processing is that it is necessary for the purpose of the legitimate interests of Benefacts in marketing our services and communicating with our service users. We always include an unsubscribe button in our communications, so you can opt out of receiving such communications at any time.

We share this data with our web service providers and advisors. They may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We will retain this data for  until you elect to unsubscribe to our communications, delete your account on our website or where you are an inactive registered user for more than 24 months.

Advertising

To help us reach new audiences who may be interested in our work, Benefacts may from time to time use Facebook Advertising, Facebook Pixel Re-Marketing, and communications. This tool allows Benefacts to understand and deliver ads and make them more relevant to you. The collected data remains anonymous and Benefacts cannot see the personal data of any individual user. However, the collected data is saved and processed by Facebook.

Facebook may be able to connect the data with your Facebook account and use the data for their own advertising purposes (in accordance with Facebook’s Data Use Policy found under: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/). Facebook has control of the information gathered through Facebook Advertising, Facebook Pixel Re-Marketing, and communications. You can opt-out of Facebook’s use of cookies and Facebook Pixel Re-Marketing through settings on your Facebook Account.

Partner organisation projects

Benefacts works with partners to complete reports and carry out analyses in the nonprofit sector. Sometimes our partners send us information to analyse. Where we received information from partners, this data processing is governed by a written data processing agreement with the partner, who is the controller of the personal data. Benefacts will only process this data on its partner’s instructions.

When we liaise with our partners, we may hold some information about their personnel such as their email address, phone number, and content of emails. The purpose for this processing is to liaise with our partner organisations and provide contracted services to them. The legal basis for this processing is processing necessary for the legitimate interests of Benefacts in liaising with its partners in the provision of services.

We share this data with service providers who assist us in providing the services such as our email provider, CRM provider, web services provider and office management system. These providers may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We will retain this data for up to one year after the termination of the partner project in question or for the period agreed in writing with our partner for the project.

Human Resources

For job applicants to Benefacts, we process data to recruit new employees to our organisation and process data about the employees once they have started working with us.

The categories of data processed are: name, address, phone number, CV, application letter, and once the applicant has become an employee we will also process PPSN, bank account details, next of kin details, visa/permit information, medical information such as doctors’ certificates, leave entitlement, salary, contract of employment, reviews and tax information.

The legal basis for this processing is processing necessary in order to take steps at the request of the candidate prior to entering into a contract of employment, processing necessary for the performance of the employment contract and processing necessary for our compliance with our legal obligations.

We share the information you provide in your application with our contracted recruiter in order to make a shortlist of candidates. This recruiter is not permitted to use this data other than on our behalf. We may send you emails about your application through our email service provider or call you to arrange interviews or liaise with you about the progress of your application. We also process our employees’ data on all our office systems and this is normally in electronic form.

We share this data with our third-party human resources information system and with third parties that provide us consultancy services relating to human resources issues. We may also share some information with the Revenue Commissioners or with transport providers for the purposes of tax and the tax saver scheme.

We will retain this data for job applicants that are called for interview for 1 year after interview and for employees up to one year after the conclusion of your employment with us unless a longer period is required by law (e.g. tax and payroll information).

Suppliers

When we liaise with our suppliers, we may hold some information about their personnel such as their email address, phone number, and content of emails or other communications.

The legal basis for this processing is processing necessary for the legitimate interests of Benefacts in obtaining services which support its mission.

We share this data with service providers who assist us in managing the services such as our email provider, CRM provider, and office management system. These providers may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We will retain this data for up to one year after the conclusion of our business relationship.

3. Transfers of data outside the European Economic Area

Where there are transfers of personal data outside the EEA we put in place the standard contractual clauses for the protection of personal data in international transfers.

4. Your rights relating to personal data

You have a right to request access to, rectification of or erasure of your personal data. You also have a right to restrict or object to processing concerning your personal data and the right to data portability.

If we are processing personal data on your behalf based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing which took place prior to its withdrawal.

If you are unhappy with how we process personal data, we ask you to contact us so that we can rectify the situation.

You may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The Irish supervisory authority is the Data Protection Commission.

5. Requirement to process personal data

You may browse our website without providing us with any personal data and this will not affect your ability to view our website. For information about cookies we use please see our Cookie Notice.

If you do not provide us with your information for the purposes described above, we cannot create your Benefacts account, send you our updates about Benefacts, liaise with you about events, respond to your queries or assess your suitability for a role within Benefacts.

6. Automated decision-making and profiling

We do not use any personal data for the purpose of automated decision-making or profiling of any individuals.

Last Update: 20 May 2020